


If Only in My Dreams

by georgygirl



Series: Across the Universe [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Christmas, Christmas Fluff, Domestic Avengers, Drama, Established Relationship, Fluff, Internalized Homophobia, Kid Fic, Light Angst, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Minor Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers, POV Steve Rogers, Period-Typical Homophobia, Romance, Steve Has Issues, Steve Rogers and the 21st Century, Suburbia, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-09
Updated: 2019-08-09
Packaged: 2020-08-16 03:21:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 45,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20178484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/georgygirl/pseuds/georgygirl
Summary: When Steve falls asleep in the middle of the Alps on Christmas Eve 1944, the last thing he expects is to wake up over seventy years into the future in a sleepy, snow-covered New York village right out of Currier and Ives.And father to a toddler. And married to a man.Which is why it's clearly a Hydra plot.*REPOST*





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> And yet _another_ repost from 2015. Once again, taken from a file conversion, so there may be some formatting issues.

~*The Alps, December 1944*~

Steve huddled closer to the ground and squeezed his eyes shut, trying his best to block out the murmurs and hums of seasonal tunes that surrounded him. It was his turn to get some shut-eye, and though he'd begun to suspect he didn't need as much as his fellow Commandos, he also wasn't about to turn down a few hours of down time if he could manage it.

Someone earlier had done the math and figured out it was Christmas Eve, and that had turned into talk of Christmas Eves past and Christmas Eves to come, and Steve would be lying if he didn't admit a little pang of jealousy hit him listening as the others reminisced over days gone by and plotted out happier days ahead. Sure, Steve had seen his share of happy — cold, barren, but happy — days of Christmases past, but so many of those featured memories of Bucky, and Bucky…

He tightened his folded arms against his broad chest and nestled his head against his helmet. Yeah, that was a path better left untraveled.

So, he tried to think about what would come after the war, but every time he began to wonder what might happen once the war was over (he was certain the war would be over next year at this time), a nerve-wracking jolt of guilt flooded his veins. Even if Steve lived to see another Christmas, Bucky never would, and Bucky had only been where he'd been because Steve had asked…

So, then he tried to think about Peggy. Sweet, beautiful, tough-as-nails Peggy. With her chestnut curls and brown eyes and red lips and melodious voice and soft curves... Well, he thought soft curves. He hadn't had the chance to find out for himself yet, but if he played his cards right, he was certain he would. She was everything he could have ever hoped for (well, almost everything, but those sorts of thoughts were liable to get a fellow dishonorably discharged), and she'd even thrown a few smiles his way before he'd turned into, well, the peak of human perfection. She'd given him a once-over back when he was still Skinny Steve Rogers from Brooklyn, the dumb kid that didn't know when to back down from a fight; the idiot that had never figured out when to keep his damned trap shut. Maybe, if the fates allowed and this war really was over by next year at this time, he'd have new Christmas memories to treasure. A fiancée to spend the holiday with or maybe, if he was very good, a wife. They would have a son someday (he _could _still have children, couldn’t he?), and Steve would name him 'James' in honor of his fallen friend, the one guy that always had his back, the fellow that had promised to follow him 'til the end of the line.

Hold on, the Army _would _let him go, wouldn't they? Well, no, that wasn't the right way to phrase it. He could make a career out of this, but they wouldn't just keep him cooped up in a lab after the war, would they? They'd let him live his life, right? They'd let him get married (if he was so lucky) and have a family (if he was even luckier), wouldn’t they? Had he read the fine print on his enlistment forms? Jesus God, he wasn't partially the property of Stark Industries, was he? Stark was a nice-enough fella, but sometimes he would get this odd, maniacal look in his eyes that Steve knew was him on the verge of another technological breakthrough, and once — but only once — Stark had leveled that look directly at him. He'd quietly excused himself from the room after that and kept his distance for the next forty-eight hours. Stark appeared to have gone onto something else by the time Steve met up with him again, but Steve would never forget that look — the one that made him wonder if, sometimes, Stark saw him more as 'project' than 'person.'

And then he thought about going home after the war, back to Brooklyn and back to… Back to what?

What home was left for him to go back to? He didn't have a home, come to think of it, not anymore, and not that he wanted to think about it. After his Ma had died, Bucky and his family had been all that he'd had in the world, and now Bucky was…gone too. Word got out that he had been the reason for that, he'd never be received at the Barnes' homestead ever again.

Not that he even had the guts to go back there. Not yet.

There was his one-room dive in Brooklyn that was technically his home; it was, at the least, where all his worldly possessions remained waiting patiently for his return from the front, but he hesitated to call that a 'home.' 'Home' was more than just a physical place, it was a spiritual place, it was a place filled with warmth and merriment and happiness and people that he loved. Did he even have anything like that now? He wasn't sure that he did. Maybe he would someday (and hopefully with Peggy), but for right now... He had the Commandos to look after, but they all had lives of their own and homes to go back to when this was all over. Steve didn't. When this war was over, he had no place to go. Actually, maybe it wouldn't be such a bad thing if he committed to the Army for the rest of his days. If Peggy wouldn’t have him (and God, did he hope Peggy would have him), at least the Army would.

Or Howard Stark, he supposed, now that he thought about it. Stark could run some improvements on him. It would give him something to do. Hey, if he was Stark's property (ho boy, he really should have read the fine print on those papers he'd signed!), he didn't have much of a choice, now did he? Dear God, tangled up with Howard Stark for the rest of his life. He wasn't sure he'd survive it.

So, a potential future as an Army lab-rat or Howard Stark's personal lab-rat. Well, it was sure to always be interesting. Lonely, but interesting. Maybe Bucky was right? Maybe he should have just gotten a job in a war plant? He was sure he would've eventually found some dame desperate enough to have him in that case.

Maybe.

He adjusted his position somewhat to try and find a comfortable spot, and as the other Commandos quietly sang an off-key rendition of one of Bing Crosby's Christmas hits, Steve drifted off into a lonely, fitful sleep.

~*~

~*Decidedly _Not _the Alps, December 1944*~

He felt like he was wrapped up in a cloud.

Warmth surrounded him, soft, comfortable warmth. He stretched his legs out and recognized the sensation as being tucked into a bed. He stretched his right arm out and smacked against something hard that his mind took to be a bedside table. Whatever was atop it, probably a lamp and an alarm clock and other sundry items, rattled from the hit. His other arm was curled around a form — a human form — snuggled up against him, and Steve opened his eyes and looked down to see a messy, dark head using his chest as a pillow, an arm thrown over his abdomen as though to hug Steve. His arm still around this person invading his space, he spread his palm out flat against the person's back and felt over the sharp angles of bone and muscle he found.

Either this was one muscular dame or this wasn't a dame at all.

The creature against him began to stir, moaning or whining or grumbling or some combination of all three as he turned his face toward Steve's chest and pressed into him. Steve held his breath — oh, God, had someone found out about his…? — and waited for the person to still, and soon enough, the sounds and the movements stopped. He relaxed again, exhaling the breath with as little effort as he could muster, and eyed up his surroundings to figure out his best way of escaping.

It was a bedroom. The early morning light — not sunlight, just daylight — shone into the room, and Steve was able to make out a pretty nice bedroom. He was lying in the biggest bed he'd ever seen (even if he and the person cuddled up against him were only taking up maybe a quarter of it total), and there was a dresser with a large mirror over it to the side, a bureau catty-corner to the bed, a nightstand on either side of the bed, and, weirdest of all, some black rectangular thing directly ahead of the bed. Steve squinted his eyes as he peered at it. What in the hell was that?

The creature began to stir again, and once more, Steve held his breath and hoped the man — good God, it was a man — would fall back into slumber. But his hopes were dashed as the creature groaned deep in his throat and uttered exactly one sentence:

"Five more minutes."

He swallowed but didn't say anything, and he felt a puff of breath hit his chest as though the man in his arms had let out a silent laugh.

"I know you're awake," the creature said, but there was a hint of a tease to his words. "Nat's right. You're a horrible liar."

He had no idea who 'Nat' was, but he thought he was a pretty good liar when the occasion called for it. Erskine was the only one that had caught onto his multiple enlistment tries; none of the other dopes at the draft board had ever figured it out.

The man grumbled and groaned, and suddenly, the weight was lifting off his chest as the man pushed himself to a sitting position. He turned to Steve, smiling drowsily, and Steve tilted his head in thought. The black undershirt was an odd style choice, but there was something familiar about the man… Something about that dark hair and that odd facial thing he had going on and those brown eyes…

"Merry Christmas."

Steve blinked. "Uh, Merry Christmas?"

The man — who, dear God, must have, at the very least, been about forty — made a slightly bemused face and said, "Are you asking me if it is?"

Well, this fellow seemed to be familiar with Steve even if Steve was clueless to his identity. He gave a brief smile and said, "Uh, no," then said with much more confidence in his voice, "Merry Christmas." Any thought that perhaps he'd found himself inhabiting someone else's body — it wouldn't be the strangest thing to happen to him, after all — was laid to rest when he realized that was certainly his voice rumbling in his throat.

The man with the flecks of gray at his temples just snorted a laugh and scratched at his chest — Steve saw the remnants of odd-shaped surgical scars there — before he stretched his arms out above his head, his movements lithe and almost cat-like as he yawned and forced the sleep from his body. Something inside Steve itched to reach out and touch that body, run a hand down the firm muscles of his torso, put an arm around his waist and pull him tight against him, run his hands through that messy, dark hair and capture those lips with his own and—

Yeah, that way lay danger.

"Well," the man said and, before Steve knew what was happening, threw himself over Steve in an attempt to reach something on the nightstand beside him. Steve held his breath and hoped and prayed his body would not react to that motion improperly, and right before he thought he was about to give in to the desire of want starting to flood his bloodstream, the man pulled back, something small and black and rectangular in his hand.

"You won't let me install Friday here, so I guess I have to go check on our wee little one the old- fashioned way."

'You won't let me' was the only part of that sentence Steve understood.

The man sat back on the bed, his eyes concentrated on that little black glowing thing in his hand, and Steve tried to get a better look at it without being too obvious. Only Hydra had anything like that—

Shit, he hadn't been captured by Hydra, had he?

The man snorted a laugh. "I see Barton found his new arrow set. Hope the fucker realizes he's not getting any new ones until after New Year's, so he'd better hope no one tries any shit until the holidays are over."

He turned the black rectangle to face Steve, and Steve saw what looked to be a color photograph of a wall littered with arrows embedded into it. Steve just nodded, not really sure what to make of it.

"Nothing?" the man said, disappointment evident in his voice. "No patented 'Stare of Disapproval'? Nothing about Barton wasting perfectly good ammunition? Nothing about all the hard work I put into those arrows and he goes and blows through them in five minutes? Nothing about threatening to bench him to teach him a lesson? Come on, Steve, I know Christmas makes a sap out of you, but you're slipping here."

Steve finally pushed himself to a sitting position. "Yeah, uh," he said and raked a hand through his hair — his decidedly short hair. That was new. "Maybe I'm not as awake as you think I am?"

The man continued to stare at the thing in his hand. "Or you're not even bothering to pay attention to me because you're more excited about today than the spoiled brat across the hall." He pushed something on the side of the rectangle, and the light went out. He hummed a bit and said, "The things I do for you," then leaned in and pressed a quick, chaste kiss against Steve's slightly-opened mouth. "Yeah, we should probably brush our teeth before we go beyond that."

And then he was up and off the bed — climbing _over _Steve to do so — and was in through a door between the bureau and the large rectangular thing on the wall. Lights clicked on, and Steve saw it was a bathroom. The door closed and water began to run, and as the odd man busied himself in the room, Steve put a hand up to his mouth, the pads of his fingers resting against where his lips still tingled from the contact of the other man's mouth against his. He would be lying if he said that the slight scratch of facial hair against his skin hadn't in any way been enticing.

Was this a test? Steve had felt some sort of magnetic pull to the man from the moment he'd become aware of his presence, but what… _How _did he even get here? _Where _was he? _Who _in the world _was _that man? Was this Hydra's doing? Had the Red Skull somehow found out about…? No, no one knew that about him. Bucky had, but he'd assured Bucky the serum had fixed him, much to Bucky's relief. Then what was this? And why did Steve so desperately want to put his hands all over that lithe body? Why did he want to kiss every inch of that tawny skin? Why did he want to listen to that strangely familiar voice ramble at ninety miles an hour over things he could only half-understand?

Just how old was that fellow, anyway?

He got up from the bed and scanned the room. There was nothing overtly odd about it, which was maybe the odd thing about it. It was too perfect. It was a normal-looking bedroom if…well…there was something oddly futuristic about it, but Steve had seen enough of Hydra to know what they were capable of. Stark, too, but even Stark's technology wasn't quite on par with Hydra's. He went over to a window and looked out to find a residential street covered by a blanket of freshly- fallen snow. There were a couple of odd-looking vehicles — automobiles? — along the street along with houses swathed in garlands of pine and holly and lights. Lights. Who could afford more than one strand of Christmas lights? And why did the colors look so odd?

He turned away from the window and came face-to-face with himself in the mirror. He was clad in only a white undershirt and gray, skin-tight boxers that didn't feel like they were made out of the right material. Comfortable and still had enough give to not feel constricting in the least. Yet for what little he wore, he wasn't cold. The floor was carpeted, and the temperature in the room was just right without being either too warm (Steve couldn't ever say he'd had a bedroom that was 'too warm') or too cold (he'd experienced plenty of that). He peered closer at his reflection, and sure enough, his hair was shorter, sort of spiked-up rather than swept in a side-part. He put his left hand up to his face (which did look a bit older than he'd last seen) and rubbed against five o'clock shadow, and that's when he saw it. The metal band on his left ring finger.

Was that…a wedding ring?

The water still running in the bathroom, he reached down with his right thumb and forefinger and pulled the ring from his hand. He turned it over a few times and saw there was an inscription inside of it: three numbers separated by dashes, 04-24-2014, and what looked like an etching of a robotic face of some sort. It was small and hard to really tell in the light, but it sure looked like a face of some kind.

The water shut off, and Steve shoved the ring back on his finger and made a dash to what he hoped was the exit. He pulled open the door and found himself in a hallway, another door ahead of him, three more doors surrounding, and a staircase beside him. Wherever he was, the mock-up was pretty good. It looked like a house — a pretty nice house, if he was being honest. Of course, anything was better than his one-room shack.

He was about to go for the stairs when some noise from the room across the hall caught his ear, and certain he wasn't about to be caught by the odd fellow in the other room, he tiptoed over and pushed the already-ajar door open just a fraction more. He didn't know what he'd expected, but he hadn't expected what looked to be a child's nursery. He pushed the door more fully open and took in the sight of soft pastel colors and stuffed animals and white-painted furniture. There was a crib against one wall and a very young child standing inside it, hands with a tight grip on the railing.

Steve judged it to be a girl from the color of the sleeper she was dressed in. Her eyes, large and brown, lit up as soon as he stepped into the room, and she let go of the railing then bent down to the mattress beneath her and picked something up, a weird-shaped stuffed animal of some kind, half-blue and half-red. She stood back up and, one arm around the animal, reached out her free hand and said, "Daddy!"

He stopped short.

Did she… Did she just call him _Daddy_?

"Daddy, up!" she said, more resolute and determined than any child her age had any right to be. He blinked and looked around the room, his eyes falling on a framed sketch on the wall opposite the crib. It was his own work; he'd recognize his hand anywhere; but the subject matter was… odd, to say the least. He saw himself in the sketch, all smiles, and he saw himself with arms enveloping two others in a tight embrace: one he recognized as this little girl in the crib and the other he knew to the be the odd man he'd left in the other room. The odd man in the sketch was smiling as well, what Steve would say was a soft, secret smile, the kind he reserved for certain people, nose scrunched and eyes crinkled. The little girl was cuddled against him, face slack with sleep and the contentment of safe arms around her. If he didn't know better, he'd say it was a family portrait.

The little girl in the crib started to whine, and just as he was about to make a move to go to her, a voice behind him said, "Oh, no, you don't. I'll take care of the munchkin. You go brush your teeth. I absolutely refuse to give you your real Christmas kiss until you brush your teeth."

The odd man, who Steve now realized was several inches shorter than he, shoved him away from the crib, and the little girl cried out in delight and said, "Papa!" as she reached out for him.

"Merry Christmas, baby girl. I see Iron Cap is still in one piece," he said as he lifted her from her crib, the stuffed toy clutched tight in her left arm. Steve peered closer and saw it looked to be two separate toys somehow joined by their…arms? Hands? Were they supposed to be people or weird Disney-like creatures? One did bear a slight resemblance to what a toy Captain America might look like. Well, if he'd been drawn by Walt Disney, anyway.

The man swung the little girl into his arms and turned to Steve. "You know, there's a part of me that wishes Wilson hadn't done that. If these two ever get separated, I won't know how not to take it as a bad sign."

Steve gave a slight nod but said nothing, and the man cocked his head to the side.

"What? No, 'Tony, you're crazy,' or 'Tony, that's insane,' or 'Tony, stop being so superstitious,' or 'Tony, they're children's toys, for god's sake! Just because they come apart doesn't mean that we will!'?"

Steve just blinked and tried not to give anything away. The sooner he got out of here and figured out where he was, the better. However, it seemed inaction was just as bad as any action.

"Steve, are you feeling OK?" And now there was concern written over the man's — Tony, it seemed — face. "You've been acting kind of odd ever since I woke up." He smiled a little. "Even for you."

Steve just coughed and motioned toward the door. "Uh, no, fine. I, uh… Brush my teeth?"

Tony frowned some. "Are you asking me if you should?" Then, before Steve knew what he was doing, Tony went up on his toes in order to look Steve dead in the eyes. He peered close, pressing nose-to-nose, and added, "So help me god, if this is some other galactic cosmonaut's idea of a fun prank, they're in for a world of pain if I ever get my hands on them."

Steve figured asking what a galactic cosmonaut was would be a bad move. Somehow, he knew laughing and brushing off Tony's concern would be the right one.

"No, Tony, I'm not, uh… It's fine. I'm fine. I'm just going to go brush my teeth. Stop being so paranoid."

As he stepped back into the hallway, Tony called out after him, "Yeah? Just remember what happened the last time some space nut decided to intervene in our lives!"

Steve just went into the bathroom and shut the door behind him. He flipped on the light switch and peered around. It was non-descript — OK, that wasn't exactly true. It was an absolutely _stunning _bathroom: sleek, expensive, large. He'd never seen a bathroom like this before. He'd never seen a tub that large before, and two — _two _— sinks! Marble sinks, of all things! Pendant lamps with frosted shades high above, a window of beveled glass that looked out over a backyard, a mirror large enough to reflect the entire room at once…

He leaned against the sink, grasping hold of it to steady himself as he tried to gain his bearings. OK, so, he didn't know where he was, but he was still pretty sure he knew _who _he was, and he at least had a name for the odd, short man with the messy, dark hair. Whatever this place was, it was almost as though someone had brought his deepest, darkest fantasies to life. This was the home of a wealthy man, or at the very least someone that did not worry about where his next meal was coming from. Steve had always wondered what it would like to live like that. There was little need to dress in layers or pile on blankets. He hadn't felt so much as a cool breeze since waking up.

Steve was so damned sick of being cold all the time. There was a little girl with wispy blonde hair and brown eyes that had squealed in delight when she'd laid eyes on him and called him 'Daddy.' Steve always hoped, deep down, he would have the chance to have a family of his own.

But strangest and most frightening of all was the odd, short man with the messy, dark hair. He was a bit older than Steve would have imagined for himself, but, and he shut his eyes tight as he let this next thought wash over him. He was everything he'd always fantasized about, if only for a brief moment before he was able to tap those emotions back down to the deep, dark part of his soul where they came from. Steve had a thing for brunettes. This man was a brunette. He had a thing for slender bodies. This man was much more lithe and slender than Steve ever would be again. He had a thing for smartassed motor-mouths. Yeah, Steve was pretty sure this Tony fit that bill, too.

He was, well, not _perfect _but everything he'd always wanted but assured himself he could never have. Aside from the tingle of electricity that had gone through him when Tony's lips had touched his, he'd been hit with the overwhelming sense of familiarity and belonging. He didn't know how whoever had set this up had managed it, but they'd dug into the deepest, darkest parts of Steve's soul and had given him everything he'd ever wanted but told himself he could never have.

He opened his eyes and glanced over the scant items cluttered over the sink. There were two toothbrushes in a ceramic holder, one a translucent red and one a translucent blue. It was either muscle memory or instinct that had him reaching for the blue one, and he opened the mirror above the sink and pulled out the tooth paste — or he thought it was toothpaste. He had to stop and read the label first. 'Total.' 'Advanced.' 'Whitening.' 'Fluoride.' Sure didn't look like anything he knew Colgate had on the market. He unscrewed the cap and squirted some onto the brush then put the tube back and went about the process of brushing his teeth, expecting the usual wretched taste but actually finding the minty flavor a pleasant surprise. Again, didn't taste like anything he knew Colgate had on the market.

Once he'd finished up in the bathroom, he went back into the bedroom and took a quick and unsubtle look around. If he took too much time, that Tony fellow would come looking for him, and something told him he didn't want Tony to honestly suspect this to be the work of a 'galactic cosmonaut,' whatever that meant. The décor of the room was sophisticated and yet simplistic, muted colors and a neutral palette. As an excuse to take up more time than he knew he had, he straightened out the bedclothes, tucking the sheets in and fluffing up the pillows, and his eyes finally hit upon a framed photo atop the bureau. He finished righting the comforter then went over and picked up the silver frame, eyeing the picture within in slight confusion. He recognized himself adorned in what sort of looked like his Captain America uniform (close but not quite) without the helmet. His brown-gloved hands (and were those gloves…fingerless?) were joined with what looked to be Tony's, and they were…kissing. His heart stopped, and he looked around for someone — anyone — that might see this and be tempted to report him. Fantasizing about it, hell, even a quick one in the dark was one thing; pictorial evidence of the dirty deed was another thing entirely. Tony's dark hair was mussed per usual, and he looked to be dressed in some sort of odd metal suit — red and gold and, come to think of it, looking a lot like that one toy that was joined together with the Captain America-looking toy the little blonde girl had been clutching fast to.

"Steve!" Tony's voice called from downstairs, and, startled, Steve nearly dropped the frame. He set it down and went over to the door.

"Yeah?" he called down.

"I can't hold her back much longer! She sees the presents. She knows they're for her. Get down here so she can open them!"

He took a quick glance back at the picture on the bureau, looked down at the gold band on his finger, then took a breath and stepped out into the hall.

~*~

He wasn't sure what to expect when he got downstairs. He didn't expect all the lights and festive decorations, that was for sure, and he didn't expect high-pitched giggles and low, rumbling chuckles. He didn't expect a voice that said, "No, no, wait for Daddy to get downstairs. Daddy's been looking forward to this for weeks." He stopped in the foyer and just listened for a moment. Obviously, Tony hadn't cottoned to the fact that he'd already come downstairs, and he waited to see if this Tony would slip up and say anything he shouldn't. Instead, all he got was, "Now, what the hell station is _A Christmas Story _on? The old man always loves to point out everything they got wrong in that movie. You'd think he grew up then or something."

He went over to the parlor and stopped in the doorway, leaning his weight against the molding, arms folded and head tilted as he watched Tony, with his back to him, point something at one of those wall rectangles. Colorful images flashed before his eyes, sound cutting in and out as the images changed. It reminded him of that television transmission he'd seen at the World's Fair several years ago, except this was in color, was clear as a bell, and had a strange aspect ratio.

Tony seemed to find what he was looking for, and he set some controller-like thing down on the table and turned his attention back to the toddler that was busy pulling bows off of elegantly- wrapped packages beneath a large evergreen festooned in tiny white lights (what in the world kind of lights were they?), ornaments, and garland that was either silver or gold depending on how the light hit it.

"No, no, no, no, no!" he cried, his back still to Steve, and he pulled the toddler's grabby hands away and said, "What did I tell you? Wait for Daddy." He crouched down and pulled her into a tight embrace, earning a squeak and a giggle. "Seventy years in the ice, it's the least we can do for him."

Steve's eyes narrowed in suspicion at Tony's last comment. Just what did that mean? Was it a code of some kind? And he knew Hydra was pure evil, but to involve a child in whatever insane gag they'd cooked up for him? That was taking the ruse just a little too far.

He went to step into the room, but at that exact moment, Tony stood up and turned. He smiled when he met Steve's eyes and motioned around him. It looked a bit like Christmas had thrown up all over the downstairs.

"This," he said and made the motion again. "All of this is because of you." He pointed to Steve at that, and Steve raised an eyebrow. "My reputation is shot all thanks to you."

"To me?" Steve said, trying to keep his voice as even as possible.

Tony grinned and made his way over to him. "Genius. Billionaire. Playboy. Philanthropist. Any of that ring a bell? I was perfectly content living a lonely, shallow existence with everything I could ever want and no one to share it with me until you came along. Now, look at me. I'm fucking Mr. Mom. I mean I _am _Mr. Mom. I'm not fucking him. I like Michael Keaton as an actor, but not really my type, if you know what I—"

He shook his head as though to stop himself from talking. He reached out and put his hands on Steve's arms as though to anchor him, and he tilted his head to look up and said, "Merry Christmas," as he captured Steve's lips with his own.

It wasn't as chaste as the last kiss, Tony seemingly feeling much more confident now that they'd both brushed their teeth, and though knowing he was falling right into Hydra's trap, he opened his mouth, allowing Tony's tongue to slip in. Steve hadn't done much kissing in his life. There was that dame — _woman _— that Peggy had caught him with, and there was that fellow… So, Steve hadn't done much kissing in his life, but it was apparent that Tony more than made up for what Steve lacked, and he went with it, wet and bruising and somehow the most intimate thing he'd ever done. He dropped his arms and put his hands to Tony's hips, grounding Tony just as much as Tony grounded him. It felt familiar somehow, like he had done this numerous times before, and he only pulled back at the sharp 'rip' that came from the corner of the room.

Tony jumped back, head immediately turned in the direction of the giggling toddler, who had once again found her way into the bevy of presents before her. Steve frowned at the loss of contact but said nothing, and Tony patted him on the arm and said, "Since you won't let me install Friday here, I guess I'll have to go put the coffee on for us. I'd threaten to bring Dummy with us next time, but why torture myself just to get the 'Stare of Disapproval'? There's five thousand other less annoying ways I could do that. You go try to keep the munchkin from tearing into the gifts too much. I promised the others I'd get it on video. Barton, that asshole, in particular wants to see her open his present. If Laura wasn't able to override him, I shudder to think what he got for her."

Before Steve could say anything — like ask just what the hell language Tony was speaking — he was gone in what Steve presumed was the direction of the kitchen, and, licking his lips (he swore he could still taste Tony on him, though he didn't know quite how to describe it), he pushed into the living room.

There was what looked like a film of some kind showing on that odd rectangular wall box. He stopped and watched it a moment, forgetting that he was supposed to be looking after a toddler. It only caught his eye because it looked like it was supposed to be capturing the time and place Steve had just come from — Hydra's way of trying to lull him into a false sense of security perhaps? — though some of the details didn't seem quite right. Before he could get too distracted, he turned from the picture to the little girl on the floor, who stood next to the large, decorated evergreen and pulled at the ribbons hanging off of a large box that was wrapped in some kind of shiny and colorful paper. Christmas wrapping paper was expensive. Steve had never bought any in his life, as he hadn't had the money. He picked up a smaller box and turned it over in his hand. This alone looked like it would have cost a small fortune in paper.

Another 'rip' sounded from the floor, and Steve crouched down and pulled the little girl's hand away from a box that practically towered over her. "Hey, there, sweetheart. You OK?" He set concerned eyes on her and ran a hand over her head to check for any lumps or bruises. "They treating you OK here? This is a terrible thing to…" He thinned his lips and shook his head. No sense in being too drastic about the thing just yet. He needed to formulate an escape plan of some kind, and if that was real snow outside, he really didn't want to run out there in his skivvies.

He heard what sounded like Tony running up the stairs, and he scooped the little girl up into his arms and carefully padded over to the doorway. She had a clump of crushed ribbons in her hand, and she laid them on top of his head as he leaned out into the foyer and listened for any noise that could help discern what Tony might be doing. He heard footsteps and rustling and drawers opening, and he pushed a curl of ribbon out of his eyes as Tony began the descent back to the first floor. He stepped back into the living room and had just dropped the little girl onto the couch when Tony came up behind him and tossed something at his back.

"Here," Tony said, and Steve turned, knocking the ribbon from his head and onto the floor, and caught what looked like…pants of some kind. Red pants with faces on them. He shot a look at the toy the little girl still held fast to in one tight hand. Faces that matched that one toy.

A face that matched the one engraved in the ring on his finger.

"Put those on," Tony continued as though Steve wasn't lost in his own thoughts. "They want to see pictures of this? We're going to put them in a diabetic coma. Put that ribbon back on your head. That's the icing on the cake."

Steve only now saw that Tony wore what looked like a pair of blue ones with…Steve's shield on them? Was he seeing that right? They looked worn, as though they'd been washed several times over, as did the pair Steve held in his hands. He eyed them carefully, wondering if there was something— Was this some sort of signal? But Tony was going on about the joke was on someone named Barton because his gag gift was the 'awesomest' thing he could have done for them and '_fuck you very much, Barton, I bought another ten pairs each of these things so we'll never run out of them_.'

Knowing that alerting Tony to the fact that he was not falling for this ruse would be suicide, he slipped into the pair of decidedly comfortable pants — pajama pants, he determined. Tony was going back into the kitchen, chattering away at ninety miles an hour about… Oh, who the hell knew? The man talked. A lot. Eventually, Steve decided, he would slip up and the game would be over. Until then…

The little girl had scrambled off the couch and was back over at the gifts. Sure, this was an odd ruse even by Hydra's standards, but if they were trying to trick Steve, throwing him into something like this, giving him everything he'd ever wanted, was a surefire way of buying themselves some time while they worked to better their weapons and, of course, take over the world. Isn't that what every bad guy wanted to do? When had comic books become real life? When had it become _his _life?

Was he in the Alps? Somewhere in Switzerland? Austria? Germany? Italy? He had to still be in Europe, no matter how good Tony's English was or how good the English was in the movie on that rectangular wall screen. He scooped up the little girl into his arms again, ignoring her whines as she reached out for the gifts under the tree, smacking him in the face with the colorful plush toy in her hands, and went over to a bookcase on the other side of the room. She began to babble in his arms, and Steve rubbed her back in an attempt to quiet her and turned his attention to the books on the shelves, most of which seemed to be titles having to do with history or…engineering, he'd guess. Some literature, but very little. He took another look around the room, and again, it seemed odd that _nothing _seemed odd about it. It looked like any normal living room— Well, that wasn't exactly true. It didn't look like any living room Steve had ever been in but only because it looked so _futuristic_.

It didn't make sense.

He turned back to the bookcase and eyed up a several-volume series that appeared to be about the war — World War II, it looked like they had settled on as a name — separated by years and theatres. His heart almost stopped when he saw one listed '1945,' and his fingers itched to grab it and see what falsehoods about the war Hydra had written. The years didn't go beyond 1945, so he could only assume that had been the end of it — or what Hydra wanted him to think was the end of it. He didn't know whether that was a good thing or a bad. The Allies hadn't been having such an easy time of it that winter, but Steve had no doubt in his mind things would pick up in the New Year. There was no way the Nazis — or Hydra — could win that war.

Could they?

Well, it wasn't as though this was actual history. There probably wasn't even anything written on the pages, just empty shells of books. Or maybe they were filled with all sorts of Hydra propaganda. Whoever had come up with this ruse had obviously put some effort into it. Why not go whole-hog?

The little girl still babbling in his arms, he adjusted her so he was holding her with only one arm then reached out a free hand to the bookcase.

"OK, I only brought the coffee in. I have to go back for the bagels. I mean, I guess I could have brought everything in on a nice serving tray, but since when the fuck am I Rosie the maid?"

Steve turned, wide-eyed as though he'd been caught doing something he shouldn't have. He tried to cover it up and harden his face to blank passivity, but the damage had been done. Tony, standing beside him with two steaming cups of coffee in his hands, frowned and said, "What's wrong?"

He swallowed. He could continue to lie, continue to keep up the charade and pretend, but the longer he did that, the more time he was wasting and the more lives were at stake. He hadn't scoped the house out. He didn't know if they were the only two there or not. He didn't even know where he was. He didn't have any shoes on, and that snow outside looked pretty damned real.

And there was the little matter of a poor, innocent toddler girl caught in the middle of this madness.

He pulled his hand back from the bookcase and tucked it around the toddler again, holding her as though he was the only one standing between her and pure evil. He squared his jaw and, though he was already taller than Tony, stood to his full height and said, low and with as much grave warning in his voice as he could muster, "Who are you?"

To his confusion, Tony just sighed and dropped his gaze to the floor. "Damn it," he muttered, and Steve's senses went on heightened alert. He tried to prepare himself for the fight that would come next, but a kid in his arms kind of complicated things.

Tony set the cups down on the coffee table. Steve figured it was a distraction — who cared about something like that when a fight was about to break out? — and glanced around for any Hydra goons about to make their appearance.

"I was hoping," Tony said, and Steve turned back to him for a moment, "you were wrong about this."

"About what?" he asked and hoped it didn't sound as wary to Tony's ear as it did to his own.

Tony looked up at him again and folded his arms. "First of all, you asking who I am—" He made a weird, almost contemplative grimace. "Kinda smarts a lot more than I thought it would."

"Who are you?" he reiterated. "Where am I?"

"Where are you? Upstate New York."

Steve glanced around. "That's impossible," he said, eyeing up the house around him. "I was just in—"

"Europe, yeah, I know. The war." Tony sighed again and motioned to the couch. "Sit down, Steve. We have to talk." He rolled his eyes at Steve's hesitance and reached for the little girl in Steve's arms. Steve pulled back, unwilling to let this stranger lay one finger on her, but Tony was determined, and he muttered, "Goddamn it, Steve," and snatched her out of his arms before he could pull further away.

"Sit, Steve," he said, making himself comfortable on the coffee table and settling the child on his lap, the mugs pushed aside as he sat to face the couch. He turned up to look at him. "The sooner you do this, the easier it'll be for both of us."

Steve didn't move. "And why should I make anything easy for you?"

"Well, the simplest reason is because you love me and you want me to be happy, but you don't know that yet, so sit down. Jesus. I find it insulting that people insist _I'm _the stubborn one."

Steve glanced around the room again and began noting entrances and any structural weaknesses that could be—

"Stop checking the perimeter and sit down!"

Wary, distrustful, and wondering how long it would be before the dam broke, Steve sat down on the edge of the couch, giving himself enough room to jump into action when the need arose. Tony just shook his head and muttered something about '_You owe me so much for this, old man_,' before he met Steve's gaze and said, "Last you knew, it was Christmas Eve 1944, right?"

Steve didn't even blink.

"You don't have to tell me. You already told me. Last night. When we talked about this."

"Last night?" Steve said with a derisive snort. "I've never seen you before in my life."

Tony made a pained face. "Again, seriously, that hurts more than you can ever imagine, and you'd better hope nothing like this ever happens to me because I can be a real prick." Again, Steve didn't move a muscle, so Tony continued. "I already knew about this. You told me a while ago that it had happened. Of course, it wasn't until _last night _that you suddenly remembered that _this _was the day it would happen, and fu—" he put his hands up to cover the child's ears, "—fuck you very much for that. The first Christmas she can actually enjoy, and you bail out on me and leave me with your ridiculously-suspicious younger counterpart."

Steve remained silent, not deigning to move a muscle, so Tony dropped his hands from the child's head and continued.

"You told me to be as factual with you as possible, so here it is: It's Christmas Day 2015. We're at our home-away-from-home upstate. Why? Because you're a sap, and I'm a sucker. This," he motioned to the toddler in his arms, "is Olivia. Our daughter. She's sixteen months old and too stubborn for her own good. She gets that from you— Could you please stop looking at me like you're going through all fifty ways you know to snap my neck in two steps or less? Trust me, _my _Steve will never, ever forgive you if you harm even one hair on my head."

"_Your _Steve?" he asked, though he didn't know why he focused on that. Had Tony just said the year was 2015?

"Yes, _my _Steve. The one I drove here with yesterday morning. The one that warned me about this last night after he _conveniently _remembered it might happen right before we went to bed. The one that's had my back in every battle we've fought together since Asgardian Ken's deranged little brother opened up the alien wormhole over my goddamned tower. The one that's talked me down from more ledges than I care to recall at this moment. The one that puts up with all my crazy shit even though he doesn't have to and, let's be honest, could probably do better than an almost- middle-aged mechanic with a very expensive hobby. _My _Steve, and, so help me god, if I don't get him back in a timely fashion, there is going to be hell to pay."

Steve had to admire the passion that Tony put into his words. He could almost believe they rang true for him.

He tweaked a brief, challenging smile at Tony and said, "You really expect me to believe I fell asleep in 1944 and woke up in the year 2015?"

Tony bit his lips as though to suppress a reaction of some kind then sobered and cleared his throat. "Honey, trust me, this is _not _the strangest thing to happen to you. God, I could tell you so much, but you made me promise not to say anything more than I had to."

Steve raised an eyebrow. "I know Hydra's in the business of making weapons and trying to find new and interesting ways to take me and the other Commandos out, but whatever they've got going on here seems a little excessive and odd even by their standards."

Tony sighed again and glanced away. "Right," he said, more to himself than to Steve, "you thought this was all Hydra's doing."

"Isn't it?" He surprised even himself with the amount of venom in his voice, and he seemed to surprise Tony, too, judging by the latter's painful wince.

"Someday, you're going to wish you never said those words. But, no, this is _not _Hydra. This has nothing to do with Hydra. Actually, no, that's a lie—"

Finally! He knew this chatterbox would slip up at some point!

"We thought this place would be safe from Hydra's grasp. We thought even they wouldn't bother with anything here. We thought this could be a place where we could be just 'Steve and Tony' and not 'Captain America and Iron Man.' And with this one," he again motioned to the toddler on his lap, who was whining and struggling to get over to the bevy of gifts, "we thought it could be someplace we could… If things ever got bad enough, at least there would be this."

Steve had to hand it to him. The guy was a hell of an actor. He could almost buy the routine. Almost.

"You really expect me to believe—"

"Expect? No. Hope? I told you, I'm a sucker, and fuck everyone else, _you _are a thousand more times more stubborn than I'll ever be. Yeah, you can try to sit there all stony-faced all you want, I _know _you, Steve. I know your tells. I know how hard you're fighting right now to keep from giving anything away to me. I know you're wondering how I knew that, and I know you're wondering how Hydra knew your deepest, darkest fantasies — and thank you _so much _for that. No, seriously. I fantasized about you long enough; I'm glad to see the sentiment was returned. I just hope I live up to the fantasy, but whatever. This was your dream? Yeah, well, you fought hard enough for it. It didn't come easy, that's for sure, and it hasn't been easy, and it'll continue to be not easy because we're Avengers. We're Earth's mightiest heroes. We fight the good fight against the assholes that the guys in the regular monkey suits just can't handle. And you know what? There's a lot more of that sort of shit around nowadays than you can even imagine. And it sucks that it'll never be boring for us, and it sucks that we have contingency plans drawn up on the off-chance one of us gets killed or Olivia ends up orphaned. But it's _worth it_. It's so, so worth it.

Everything. Every argument, every spat, every worry, ever tear, every laugh, _everything _is worth it. Because when the shit hits the fan and our backs are against the wall, there's no one I want in my corner backing me more than you.

"Look, I know this all seems odd to you, and it's odd to me that it's odd to you because this is our life, and with the things life has in store for you, eventually, this won't even rate on your weirdness scale. You'll think it was all a dream, and you'll tell me about it on a snowy Christmas Eve — seriously, how fucking cliché; we even get a 'white Christmas' — as we pile our spoiled brat daughter's presents under the tree, and you grumble about Barton and his BFF Buc—er, the One- Armed-Man putting all those holes in the drywall because they were having a pissing contest over which one has the better aim. Spoiler alert: they both suck after five glasses each of Grandma Barton's down-home homemade egg nog. I think you were honestly more upset that they weren't even bothering to give the impression that they were listening to you, though — let's be honest, babe — you are the last person that should give any of us grief about following orders because the only order you ever followed was to repeat your marriage vows when— Well, you'll find out."

Steve sat back, winded by Tony's little speech. It wasn't that it floored him, and it wasn't that he believed him; it was just a _hell _of a lot of words to process, and a good chunk of them didn't make a lick of sense.

He focused on the very last, only because the words were still fresh in his mind. "So, when you say 'marriage vows—'"

Tony rolled his eyes. "Oh, do you really have to ask?" he muttered and held up his left hand, one decorated with a simple gold band on his ring finger. Steve glanced down to his own hand and considered the ring there.

"But what I don't get— What's the engraving?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, the numbers are supposed to be a date, I'm guessing—" Not that he believed this, but he didn't feel in a position to counter Tony just yet. If he kept him talking, surely he would slip up. "But I don't get the thing that's engraved alongside—"

To his surprise, Tony just smiled at him, his mouth quirking to the side in a sort of half-smirk. "I guess it's sort of a 'If lost, please return to…' kind of a thing."

He pulled his ring off and handed it to Steve. Steve took it in hand and inspected it, finding, just like his, the numbers 04-24-2014 engraved along with—

"Is that supposed to be my shield?"

"Yeah."

"And the one on my ring—"

"The Iron Man faceplate. Kind of our way of being ridiculously possessive of each other. Nat thinks we have a problem. Wilson thinks it might be unhealthy. Banner just sighs a lot over it. Barton calls us 'Stony' like he thinks he's the cleverest son-of-a-bitch ever to walk the face of the earth. Rhodey thinks you're either an idiot or a saint. Pepper and the One-Armed bastard, strangely enough, seem to be the only people that don't give us any grief over our life choices.

Wanda and Viz, now that I think about it, too, but that…" He made a face and scratched at his jaw. "There's something they're not telling us, and I'm not sure I want to know what it is. Thor doesn't count. He says it's natural for soul mates to feel that way about each other, but he's a fucking alien."

Steve just nodded, ignoring the 'alien' line as he handed the ring back. Tony slipped it back on his finger.

"Look, I don't expect you to believe any of this. God knows how set in your ways you can be about things, and compared to what you've seen so far, this is probably kind of far-fetched for you. All I can tell you for certain is that, yes, this is your future, as crazy as it looks, and yes, it is awesome."

Steve considered his words a moment, twisting the ring on his own finger. He didn't believe Tony. Not in the least. It would be nice, _real nice_, if what he was saying was true, and there was a part of him, a very small part, that wanted to believe—

He knew this was a trick or a trap of some kind, but he couldn't figure out what its purpose was. To stall him? Delay him? Occupy him? Confuse him? Humiliate him? It was a detailed ruse, he'd give them that. They'd sure as hell gone to a lot of work to perpetuate it, and _bro_ther! This fellow they got for Tony sure deserved some sort of Academy Award for his performance. Steve had almost bought it several times over the course of his little speech. The only thing that had kept him from falling over the ledge was the sheer absurdity of the whole thing. Waking up in 2015.

Married. To a _man_. Something about avenging. It sounded like a strange fairytale, and while Steve had never minded fairytales, per se, he also hadn't believed in them. Cute stories, but nothing beyond that.

"Steve, this isn't Hydra," Tony said before Steve could comment on the situation. "You've done everything you can to keep Hydra out of this little spot of heaven we've carved for ourselves here."

That was it.

That was Tony's slip-up. If it was 2015, then why was Hydra still in any way in existence? No way the Commandos would have given up the fight, and no way the Red Skull could still be alive.

And, ho boy! The look of abject pity in Tony's eyes. He must have said that last comment aloud, because that's the only reason he could fathom for Tony's decidedly pitiful, "Oh, babe."

He pushed forward with it. That was it. That was the breach in the armor. That was the hole in the dam. There was no possible way, if it was 2015, that Tony would talk as though they were still in any way relevant.

"You expect me to believe over seventy years later that Hydra is still around? That the Red Skull is still alive? That we still have to deal with them?" He shook his head. "No dice. Not on my watch." He set focused eyes on Tony and squared his jaw. "I don't know what your aim is, and I don't know who exactly you're working for and why, but you tell your superiors that so long as I'm here, Hydra will never win this fight because I will never stop fighting them. Even if I'm the only one left to do it."

A wave of sadness seemed to wash over Tony. "I know. And that's what scares me."

Steve jumped up. He'd had enough of this.

"Stop it. Just stop it. I’m on to you. I know your game. I know this is a trap of some kind. I don't understand its purpose, but I know it's a trap." He ran a hand through his — damned short — hair and clenched the other in a fist. Then, in what was probably one of his less-brilliant plans, he eyed the front door and made a break for it.

He pushed out into the blindingly bright snow. Oh, it was definitely real, judging by how cold it was, and he really should have seen about putting shoes on, but if he stayed there any longer, fuck him, he might actually start to believe the insanity that was pouring out of Tony's mouth. He took off down the street at breakneck speed, bare feet pounding against un-shoveled sidewalks, and he looked for something — anything — that might give hint to his whereabouts. Hydra could fake a room, maybe even a house, but an entire neighborhood? Not possible.

He ran, fast as he could, down the street, eyeing up block after block of wood-frame houses, pruned shrubbery, driveways and garages, and festive seasonal decorations. He didn't know how long or how far he ran before he got to the intersection of what looked to be the main thoroughfare. He came to a dead stop just as a plow truck went by, throwing dirty snow up onto the sidewalk as it cleared the road. It didn't look… In fact, none of the vehicles looked… They didn't look like anything he'd seen in either Brooklyn or Europe — small and sleek and streamlined. One went by just after the plow truck — red and sleek and sporting odd-shaped headlamps. And then a truck went by and then another car. He stepped back from the curb and reached out for the signpost. He grabbed hold of it to steady himself and was just contemplating his next brilliant move when he heard the crunch of snow beneath tires beside him, and he turned to see a sleek, black car with blackened windows pull up to the stop sign. Some weird motor whirred, and he watched the blackened window slide down into the door, but there was no one there to roll it down. Instead, he peered into the driver's side to see Tony, now with a fashionable black coat thrown over him, sitting behind the steering wheel and looking rather nonplussed.

"Forgot to go for your morning run?" he asked from inside the car. When Steve didn't answer, he sighed and nodded his head at the door. "Come on. It's cold, and I still haven't had my coffee. I don't bite; I promise. Well, actually, that's not— Nope. Wrong time for bedroom talk. Sorry." He leaned over and popped the door open. "Get in before the neighbors start to stare more noticeably."

Steve looked from the open door down to his bare feet and then to Tony leaning over the seat and looking at him through the open window. He took one last look at his surroundings before he swallowed his pride and went over to the car.

"You wanna buy some candy, old man?" Tony asked with a leer. Steve frowned as he pulled open the door.

"What?"

"Nothing." Tony shook his head and sat back as Steve got in the car and closed the door. There was music playing (he guessed he would call it music), the sound quality absolutely phenomenal, and the seats were the softest, sleekest leather he'd ever felt. 'Expensive' was the first word to come to mind when looking over his surroundings. The entire interior looked as though something out of a dream — something he'd expect Stark to design for one of his cars — fancy switches and buttons and lights, and there was a colorful screen in the middle of the dashboard. As Tony pulled the car up to the intersection and waited for the traffic to clear, Steve leaned in a bit closer to read what was on the screen. Bruce Springsteen. Santa Claus is Coming to Town. He _guessed _it was the right song. Wasn't the way he remembered it being played.

"Here's a shocker: Your daughter loves Christmas music," Tony said and glanced in the rearview mirror. Steve followed his eye and saw the little girl — Olivia, Tony had called her — strapped into something, bundled up in a puffy coat, and clutching the two little plush dolls that were joined together at the hands. Captain America and Iron Man.

"Isn't that right, baby girl?" he added, and the little girl said a quiet, "Yeah," as she held fast to the two little plush dolls in her hands and kicked her legs out in front of her.

Tony made a left and pulled onto the main drag. "You can close that window, you know."

Steve turned to the door beside him, and he looked for the handle to crank the window back up. "Uh, how do you—"

"The button on the door handle right there. See it?" He didn't take his eyes off the road as he motioned to the spot in question. "Push it away from you once. That'll put it back up."

Steve hit the button as told and watched as the window slid up all on its own. "Wow."

Tony snorted a laugh. "You think that's impressive, babe, wait until you see the internet." He groaned as a bell of some kind 'dinged.' "Yeah, I know. Steve, put your seat belt on."

"My what?"

His eyes still on the road, he pulled one hand from a leather-wrapped steering wheel and pulled at a strap going across his chest. "Your seat belt. It's on the side between the seat and the door. Like strapping yourself into a harness except you're strapping yourself into a car. Safety first."

"Seat belt," he muttered but found the strap in question: one going over the shoulder and one going over the lap. "How do I secure it?"

"There's a catch on your left side between the seat and the console. Look for the thing with the red button."

He found it and secured the belt. Strange having to wear a belt in a car. Not that he'd been in very many cars in his lifetime, but he'd never had to strap himself into one.

"Where are you taking me?" he asked after a moment of silence punctuated only by the 'music' playing at a low level and the quiet babbling coming from the back seat.

"Home. Well, the roundabout way, anyway. Livvy, baby, stop kicking the seat. Papa's trying to drive."

Steve glanced back in time to see the little girl stop what she was doing, her little mouth pursed together and a displeased furrow to her small brow as she dug her fingers into her plush little toy.

"She knows what you're saying?" Steve asked as he turned back toward the front.

Tony hummed a little in thought then said, "She understands more than she can say, but as you can hear, she tries to say as much as she can."

"I don't...really have a lot of experience with kids," he said but couldn't fathom why. The less this Tony knew about him, the better.

But Tony just gave him an empathetic look and said, "Neither did I before this one came along," then lifted a hand from the steering wheel and jerked a thumb at the backseat. "Been a learning experience for us both, but I think we're doing OK."

He smiled a little at that, and against his better judgment, Steve found himself cracking a smile in response. He didn't know why. Something about Tony brought it out of him.

"Anyway, I think there's a Starbucks around here somewhere," Tony added, his attention now turned back to the road. "The stuff back home will be cold by the time we get back, and I know you prefer home-brewed over any of the chains, but you're the one that had the freak out and then went running down the street, so, now you've got to deal with the consequences."

Again, few of the words Tony spouted made any sense, and so Steve opted to ignore him. He eyed up the snow-covered road ahead of him. The snow plow hadn't done that swell a job clearing it, now that he thought about it. "How do you have any control of this car? I didn't see chains on your tires."

"Snow tires, babe." He glanced over just in time to see Steve's confusion. "Oh," he said with a laugh, "you've probably never heard of all-season radials, either."

"All _what_?"

"Didn't think so." He reached over to the dashboard and hit a few switches and knobs. "I know you've got that super serum flowing through your super veins, but your feet have got to be freezing. Even super soldiers shouldn't run barefoot through six inches of snow, which, admittedly is not that much, but still."

Steve glanced down at his legs and saw how his pants were soaked through to just above his ankle. He hadn't noticed the cold before, but now that he thought about it— He felt a burst of hot air hit his legs, and he knew then that whatever Tony had done had been for his benefit. He could almost believe everything Tony had said and done this morning had been sincere.

"Thanks," he said. Just because he didn't believe the guy didn't mean he couldn’t be somewhat grateful to him for keeping him alive and away from frostbite for at least a little while longer.

"Anytime, babe. Anytime."

"How long have we known each other?" he asked as the song changed, this one a bit slower and sung by a woman.

Tony blew out a breath. "Uh, _well_, I've kind of known about you my entire life, but we only actually met face-to-face about, oh, three-and-a-half years ago. Four, if you want to round up."

Steve gave a derisive snort. "All your life? You've got to be at least twenty years older than I am."

"OK, _ouch_. Didn't hit on one of my insecurities about this relationship at all."

"Insecurities?"

Tony glanced at him then slowed the car and made another turn. "You said it yourself. I look a hell of a lot older than you. I kind of am a hell of a lot older than you."

He nodded and decided to play along. Unless he wanted to jump out of a moving vehicle (not like he hadn't done it before), he would have to. At least for a little while longer. "But I'm guessing _your _Steve doesn't feel that way."

"_My _Steve will stubbornly insist until the day he dies that he's fifty-two years older than I am and that _he _is the cradle-robber in the relationship, not me."

He glanced down at his hands. They looked a little older, a hell of a lot more worn, but nowhere close to fifty. "How old am I supposed to be?"

Tony grinned but kept his eyes on the road. "Come on, Steve. I'm the genius, but you're not an idiot. You can do a simple equation. What's 2015 minus 1918?"

"Ninety-seven?"

Tony nodded. "Exactly." He gave him another leer. "And you are indeed the best-looking ninety- seven -year-old I've ever had the pleasure of setting eyes on."

"How is that even possible? That I'm that old but look like this?"

Tony exhaled a heavy breath. "Don't know. If it's any consolation, you've aged a bit in the time I've known you. You won't be young forever."

"How old are you?"

"Forty-five."

He frowned. "I'm only twenty-six."

"Well, _you _are. My Steve isn't."

"So, you are twenty years older than I am. Right now. Well, nineteen, technically."

"Yeah," Tony said with a bit of a sigh. "I guess I am. Like I said, it's not like I have any insecurities about this at all, so please, let's continue talking about it."

"Why are you insecure about it?"

"I don't want to—"

"Come on. Why are you insecure about it?"

"I really don't want—"

"Hey, you mentioned it. Not me. I just wonder what you've got to be so insecure about—"

"Because I just am, all right? Because I look like _this _and you look like _that _and sometimes I just... Sometimes I just feel a little too old for you, all right? Are you happy now?"

Steve felt as though all the air had been sucked out of the car. Tony flexed his hands around the steering wheel, and Steve began to wonder if maybe, just maybe, this wasn't a Hydra plot after all.

"You think you're too old for me?"

"Yes— No— Maybe— Look, it's just— It's fucking stupid, all right? I get that. I know that. I understand that. Technically, you're old enough to be my grandfather, but I'm the one that looks— And just the experiences that I— I mean, have you looked at yourself? The fucking peak of human perfection and you settle for a broken-down mechanic with a bad liver and a bad heart that somehow breaks everything that he touches?" He flexed his hands again and hardened his jaw. "You could have _anybody_, and you fucking chose… Fucking hell, it's _Christmas_."

They went silent again, and the song changed from slow to upbeat. Steve couldn't recognize any of these songs to save his life. He glanced at the toddler in the backseat, and he returned her smile in kind when she grinned at him and waved her toy at him. She babbled something at him, and he was able to catch the word 'Daddy,' but beyond that, he was lost. He shifted his gaze to Tony, and though knowing he risked falling right into Hydra's trap, he sensed that the words Tony had spoken cut more to the core than he wanted to admit, and Steve knew that if any of this was real, if he had indeed married a _man _(which didn't seem possible, but maybe if they were really in 2015...), if they had a daughter (adopted?) and a house upstate, it wasn't because Steve had merely settled for him.

"Look, Tony, I don't know what your Steve would say in this situation. I only know what I can say and how I'd feel about… Look, I don't have much experience with this sort of thing. I'm guessing if you really know me like you think you do then you already know that. But I'm not the kind of guy to waste my time. I wouldn't be with someone, I wouldn't marry them and have a family with them purely out of pity. I'd do all that because I loved them and I wanted to be with them. I'd do it because I'd realized I'd finally found the right partner, no matter how much older than me he was or appeared to be. I don't know how you and I met. I don't know how I can be ninety-seven and still look like this. But I do know that if I married you, I was planning on sticking with you the rest of my life, for better or worse. By the way, is it legal?"

"What?"

"Our marriage? That sounds strange to say. I keep thinking Colonel Phillips is going to pop up from the back seat and have me discharged on the spot."

"Can't. Don't Ask, Don't Tell is dead as a doornail, and according to the laws of the State of New York, we're very definitely married. Hell, even the Supreme Court says it's legal now nationwide. Yeah, there's a lot that's changed about society, babe. Some things you're going to love; other things…not so much."

"How did we meet?"

Tony shot him a sly glance. "No," he said after a moment's deliberation. "I think you need to find that one out the hard way."

They fell into silence again, and another song started with the line, 'And so this is Christmas…' He listened for a moment — this song definitely hadn't existed in 1944, and he doubted that Hydra had any Tin Pan Alley songwriters on the payroll — until Tony broke the silence by saying, "Did you mean that?"

"What?"

"What you said about if you married someone, it was for life?"

He nodded. He didn't even have to think about it, and though he might have been showing his cards, at the moment, he didn't care. Something about him wouldn't let him care. Something inside told him _this _— convincing Tony of the earnestness of his words — was more important than keeping secrets from Hydra.

"I did— I do. I didn't have a lot of luck when it came to… It's all about finding the right partner. I wouldn't marry someone unless I thought they were the right partner for me. I don't see a reason why your Steve would be any different, well, so long as he and I are the same person."

"More or less," Tony said, but there was a smile on his lips. "You seem to tell me 'no' a hell of a lot less."

"Well, I did only just meet you."

"I see the passive-aggressive wit is the same."

Steve relaxed into his seat, the makings of a genuine smile trying desperately to spread itself over his lips. He hated to admit it, but there was something oddly comfortable about being with Tony. The back-and-forth came easy, and the camaraderie was easy, and sure, Tony was almost twenty years older than he was, but he was still a rather handsome man with gorgeous eyes and a stubborn chin that Steve just itched to draw. He felt _safe _in Tony's presence, oddly enough, there was an overwhelming sense of _home _that came with him as well — as though Steve's place was with this man wherever that might be. His mind again postulated that perhaps this wasn't some nefarious Hydra plot after all. Maybe Tony was telling the truth. Maybe he had somehow woken up in the future, and future-him was married to Tony and they had a daughter and a house upstate. How he'd even got to the future was anyone's guess, but would it really be the weirdest thing he'd ever seen? It could happen. It wasn't just that he _wanted _it to be true, right?

"Still with me?"

Steve shook his head some to clear his thoughts. "Yeah."

"Trust me, it's a lot to take in, I know. I had a...similar...experience one time. I don't blame you for being suspicious, and I know you still don't entirely believe me. Don't get me wrong; it really sucks that you're so suspicious of me, but I'm a big boy. I can handle it. And besides, I know it's only temporary." He shot a quick look over at Steve. "It _is _only temporary, right? I mean, these sorts of experiences are only good for, like, a day or so, right?"

Steve shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine," he said. He supposed he could afford to spend one day here.

He glanced at the little girl in the back seat and focused his gaze on the stuffed toys in her hand. What had Tony called them? Revengers or something like that, wasn't it?

"So, what exactly are Captain America and Iron Man in 2015?"

"Avengers," Tony said simply, his gaze fully on the road.

Steve turned back around to face him. Oh. Right. _A_venge, not _re_venge. "What are Avengers?"

"Earth's Mightiest Heroes. We protect people, take out the bad guys— You know, the usual superhero stuff."

"What, like comic books?"

Tony snorted a laugh. "Yeah, sure."

"I mean, they're not real, right? It's just a propaganda gag?"

"Well, the wholesome family image, maybe. You're familiar with that, right? Fictional Captain America's World War II exploits were a lot more wholesome than your real-life exploits."

Steve frowned. "Are you trying to say the Avengers—?"

"Are actual real-life superheroes that take on the bad guys from every realm in the cosmos on a regular basis? Yeah. And you and me?" He motioned between them. "Captain America and Iron Man? We lead that bunch of misfits and freaks. Think of the Avengers like your Commandos except with more advanced weaponry and superpowers. And probably a lot more interpersonal drama."

He ignored the line about the drama. He assumed it was a joke. "Superpowers?" he asked instead. "What, like flying?"

"Kinda, yeah."

Steve laughed. "OK, you lost me. No way is that—"

"Possible? Like I said, I know this all seems kind of far-fetched for you even with all the crazy shit the Red Skull and Hydra got up to during the war, but trust me, there will come a time when this won't even be a drop in the weirdness bucket for you. You will not even blink at leading a group of ill-matched idiots comprised at various times of a god; a giant, green rage-monster; a couple of spies; an ex-assassin; a couple airmen — who are, no questions asked, the most normal of the group; a witch; an android; and an egotistical mechanic, among others. I know it sounds crazy, but trust me, if anyone can handle it, you can. I know people consider me the smart one and you the cute one, but to be perfectly honest, I don't think I could have done what you had to do and still have my wits about me."

Steve considered his words a moment. "What did I have to do?"

Tony shook his head. "Nope. No cheating. You have to find that one out on your own."

"Aw, come on. Not even a little hint?"

He smiled at Tony, sort of a soft, flirtatious one infused with boyish charm. He didn't know where it came from — didn't know how he even knew how to contort his facial muscles into that position — but he began to wonder if this whole thing wasn't on the level when Tony looked over at him and made a face.

"Oh, no! No, you don't. Not that look. Goddamn it!" He turned back to the road. "You know what that look does to me!"

"Actually, I didn't, but I'm starting to get the picture."

"Not even a little hint, and _stop _looking at me like that! You know, we're in trouble if you ever turn evil, because if you asked me to burn the Earth to a charred cinder with that look on your face, I'd do it in a heartbeat."

Steve continued to give him the soft, boyish smile. "I suppose I should file that information away for future reference."

"I can still see it out of the corner of my eye, damn it! Stop it! Wipe it off your face!"

Steve laughed some and complied. "All right," he said and literally wiped a hand over his face. "How's this?" he asked and gave Tony the look that had always gotten him out of trouble as a boy — the one that had always gotten people to take pity on him whether he wanted them to or not: the big, sad-eyed look with the slight frown and the pouty bottom lip. Tony glanced at him and then muttered a low, "I hate you."

Steve laughed again. "I don't think that you do."

"I do. I fucking hate you, old man. I swear to god, I'm married to a fucking Disney prince. Stop giving me those looks. You don't even know who I am, and you're still using your arsenal against me. How is that even fucking fair? I can't do it to you!"

Strangely enough, Tony _was _doing something to him, even if he didn't realize it. Steve was mesmerized by the chatterbox beside him, amazed that someone's mouth could move that fast, and he knew for as fast as that mouth moved, the brain behind it moved even faster. He'd almost love to get a peek inside that brain to see all its beautiful madness in action. He wanted to sketch it or paint it or even just wander around in it.

He wondered if Tony's Steve felt the same way.

"I'm sorry," he said good-naturedly. "I didn't mean to use my charms against you."

Tony groaned. "Fuck me, you're doing it again. Just stop, OK? Just don't talk. Don't say anything. Don't even look. Just sit there. Look out the window. Yeah, just sit there and look out your window and don't say anything."

Steve laughed once more, but he shook his head and complied.

They again drove in silence, Steve focusing on the passing scenery, the radio still playing what he assumed were supposed to be Christmas songs. He curled his toes and really wished he'd thought to grab shoes before running out of the house, and almost as though reading his mind, Tony said quietly, "There's a pair of socks and your boots in the back seat if you're interested."

Steve turned, and sure enough, there was what looked to be a pair of white sweat socks tucked into a pair of tan boots. He grabbed them and put them on, telling Tony a sincere, "Thank you," as he laced them up.

"'Better or worse, sickness and health, forever and ever,'" Tony intoned with a shrug.

"Sounds like a vow," he said.

Tony hummed a bit and said, "We've got some experience with that."

"So you've said."

Tony shot a look at him. "Still don't believe me?"

"Dunno. Should I?"

Tony kept his focus on the road ahead of them. "'Believe me' or 'believe _in _me'? Two completely different things."

"Why shouldn't I believe in you?"

Tony again kept his focus on the road ahead of them but said nothing to that, and instead of finding it suspicious, Steve instead found it a little disheartening, and something ferociously protective awakened deep within his soul. Tony was able to take care of himself; he knew that. But he sensed vulnerability in Tony — a deep, dark emotional vulnerability, and a painful pang hit his heart at that thought. From out of nowhere, he wished to pull Tony into his arms and shield him from all the ills of the world. He wanted to protect Tony, defend him from those that would perpetrate harm against him. The bravado and the cockiness were a mask. Deep down, Tony was vulnerable and insecure, and more than anything, Steve wanted to banish those wretched thoughts to the netherworld where they deserved to reside. Tony was beautiful and charming and brilliant and handsome, but Steve knew he didn't genuinely believe it about himself. Something or someone, somewhere, had caused him grief. Something had made him doubt himself. Something had made him fight to prove himself. He was a little like Steve in that regard, he supposed.

Maybe that was one of the things that had brought them together?

The last of his concerns about this being a Hydra trap evaporated. Perhaps he had come to accept the truth, or perhaps he was just giving in to his most shameful desires. Either way, he didn't care. Tony — and just what was his last name? — had gotten him beyond that. He'd saved him.

He had a feeling it wouldn't be the last time that he would.


	2. Chapter 2

* * *

~*Evidently Upstate New York, December 2015*~

Nothing had been touched by the time they got back to the house.

It was just as he'd left it. The tree still glowed in the corner; beautifully-wrapped presents were stacked underneath it; that strange television-type thing on the wall was airing some sort of… image; two coffee mugs sat on the coffee table where Tony had set them when he'd tried to talk to Steve about what was happening to him.

He stood in the foyer, a hot chocolate in hand (Tony had said the size was something called 'Venti') and watched as Tony set his own cup of joe (also a 'Venti') on the table beside the stairs then went about unbundling Olivia from her overcoat. He set her on the floor that was covered in what looked like an expensive Persian rug and spun her out of her coat. As soon as she was free, and with that strange little plush toy in hand, she scrambled away from Tony and into the living room, chirping happily as she did so.

"Don't go too far, baby," Tony called after her as he hung her coat up on the coat rack beside the door. "Time for your mid-morning nap. If Daddy wasn't so screwy, we could have had all your presents opened already."

"Sorry," Steve said, finding he did actually mean it somewhat.

But Tony just shrugged himself out of his own overcoat and hung it up on the hook next to where he'd hung Olivia's. "Eh, shit happens," he said. "Happens to us more than most, but I'm learning to live with it."

He grabbed his joe from the table and took a swig of it, and he padded into the living room and said, "Hey, kiddo. I don't know what you think you're doing over there, but you're going down for a nap now."

But Olivia just stood over by the tree and clutched fast to her little plush toy. She shook her head and giggled and said, "No!" but Tony just raised his eyebrows and said, "Oh, I'm sorry. Did I phrase that as a question? I don't think I did."

He set his coffee down on the table and went over to scoop her up. She squealed in delight and babbled something, and Tony cuddled her close and blew a raspberry against her cheek and said, "OK, kiddo, time for a nap."

She shook her head and said, "No," again.

"Again, not a question."

He weaved his way through the room, around the couch and over to the doorway. He smiled up at Steve, who stood next to the frame, clutching his hot chocolate in both hands, and said, "I'm gonna go put this little brat down in her crib." He nodded into the room and added, "Make yourself comfortable. I know you don't know this yet, but it's your house, too."

Steve just nodded and watched Tony carry Olivia up the stairs. Halfway up, it seemed her giggles had turned into slight whines, and by the time they got upstairs, Steve was certain he heard a full-on cry.

"Yep," he heard Tony say, "and that's why you're going down for a nap."

Steve took a sip of his chocolate and went into the room. He stared at the TV a moment and watched sharp, colorful images flash before his eyes then stepped around the couch and began to scope out the room.

Like he'd noticed earlier, there was really nothing _odd _about it. It looked like an average, normal living room — he supposed from 2015, anyway. He didn't have a good frame of reference. Most of what he'd seen had been 1939's impression of what the future would look like, and truth be told, it hadn't looked anything like this.

He went over to the tree and gazed at the small, white bulbs that covered it. He pinched one between his thumb and index finger and tried to figure out how they even worked — they were the tiniest things he'd ever seen — then shook his head and shrugged his shoulders and let go of the tiny bulb. He let his gaze linger over the bevy of ornaments that looked to be an amalgam of everything and not anything that could be considered a 'theme.' In the center, toward the top, was one of what looked like a little mouse wearing a Santa hat and sitting atop a child's letter block, and in powder pink writing was spelled out 'Baby's First Christmas 2014.'

He didn't know why this one stuck out to him, but he couldn't stop looking at it, and something warmed inside of him as he thought about Tony and himself being the type to commemorate something like that. If nothing else, from what he'd seen, Tony was a loving father.

He shook his head at the waste of colorful and expensive-looking wrapping paper and turned his attention to the fireplace mantle, where three stockings hung: an almost-generic-looking one with the name 'Steve' written in glitter, an older one that looked a little worn and well-used with 'Tony' sewn onto it, and finally the most personal-looking one, a hand-crocheted job with 'Olivia' etched into it. Only Olivia's stocking had anything in it (Steve would go so far as to say hers was over- stuffed). His and Tony's were completely empty and evidently there only for show.

"She gets it from you," Tony was saying as he walked back into the room, and Steve turned, chocolate still in hand, and watched as Tony went around the couch and snatched up his coffee from the table.

"What?" Steve asked as Tony took a gulp of his beverage.

"The stubbornness," he said as he swallowed down the remnants of the gulp. "I was a very easy- going child. I'm going to assume you weren't."

Steve just shrugged. "Don't know. Don't remember. My ma would have been the only one that could've told you that."

Tony hummed out a thought then smiled and nodded his head to the couch. "Come on. I'm sure you've got a thousand questions turning over in that head of yours."

Tony sat down on the couch, and Steve followed, making sure to sit a proper distance away from him. Tony raised an eyebrow at this and, noting the amount of space between them, said, "I'm going to assume it's because you don't know who I am and not because you think I have cooties or something."

Steve, still with his hands around his hot chocolate, said, "Well, I didn't want to be right on top of you."

Tony's eyes crinkled in delight, and his mouth twitched from side-to-side before he said, "Oh, babe. Why? Why do you have to give me ammunition like that?"

Steve just frowned at him, and Tony exhaled a breath and said, "You'll understand eventually." He took another gulp of coffee, and he reached out and grabbed some sort of rectangular instrument, which he pointed at the screen on the wall. The picture and the sound cut out immediately, the screen turning black, and Tony tossed the implement back onto the table and turned his attention to Steve.

"OK, babe, shoot. What do you want to know?"

Steve merely blinked at him, and his jaw fell open as he tried to think of something — anything to ask—

"How 'bout we start with the easy stuff? I'm Tony, your husband. This is our house where we stay from time-to-time. It's Christmas Day, and I'm pretty sure all those presents under that tree are for our spoiled brat of a daughter—"

"What kind of lights are those?"

Tony stopped abruptly and stared at him. "Uh, what?"

Steve motioned to the tree. "Those lights. What are they? I've never seen anything like them. They're so…small…and like a _bluish _white." He shook his head. "Doesn't make any sense."

"_That's _what you want to know?" Tony asked, voice flat and full of disbelief.

Steve shrugged at him. "We'll start there."

Tony just stared at him a moment then blew out a breath and said, "Uh, they're called 'LEDs,' which stands for 'light-emitting-diode.' Based on electroluminescence— _And_, I just lost you."

"What, like electricity?" Steve asked with a frown, and Tony shrugged.

"Kind of. Yeah. It's the 'in' thing now. Everyone's switching to LEDs. More expensive, but they use a hell of a lot less power than your standard incandescent."

"They're..." Steve tried to think of the right word. "Sharp. I mean they're... They don't glow, ah, warm or—"

"Eh," Tony said, "smallest you've probably ever seen is, what, a C6?"

"Probably."

"Yeah, mini lights come in after a while — the incandescent ones — and then they got replaced by LEDs. I think you like the incandescents better, but you humor me with the LEDs."

"Oh," was all Steve could be bothered to say about that. "We're married?"

Tony hummed, but Steve couldn't tell what emotion was behind it, then said, "Does that bother you?"

"I don't know. Should it?"

Tony squawked out a laugh. "Can of beans you do _not _want to open, babe. Trust me."

He took another sip of coffee, and Steve watched him and said, "But we're married? I mean, _really?_"

"Really-really," Tony said. "Legal and everything. License on file for us — even had one of the clerks perform the ceremony for us."

"And a daughter?"

"What about her?"

Steve pulled one hand away from his chocolate and scratched at his forehead. "I mean, it's not— I don't know how—"

"Yeah, _that_, uh... I don't think you're ready for that, so why don't we just say yes, we have a daughter. Olivia Louise. Named for no one but herself because we couldn't agree on the order of our mothers' names. Flipped to a couple of random pages in a baby book Barton threw at our heads because he thought we were arguing too much. Like I said, sixteen months old and stubborn as a mule. Or her father. Same thing."

"You mean you?"

"Why would I mean me?"

"Because she looks like you. Aren't you, um... Didn't you, uh, _father _her?"

There was a funny look that came over Tony's face at that, a sort of bemused perplexity or maybe nervous wariness. Like he wasn't quite sure how to answer his question without spoiling too much for him.

"You know what?" Tony said and scratched at his oddly-groomed facial hair. "How 'bout I just say it's a _long _story and leave it at that?"

"Was she from a previous relationship?"

Tony let out another laugh. "Yeah, definitely 'no' on that one. Look, honey, it's not anything you need to worry about right now. She's ours, and that's all there is to it."

There was a story there of some kind — so long as Tony was on the level, anyway — but unless he was smart about his word choices, Tony wasn't going to give away anything.

He motioned to the tree. "That ornament — the first Christmas one — we've had her that long?"

Tony exhaled a sigh. "Not going to give up, are you, old man?" he muttered then said, "She's been ours from the start."

Steve frowned as he tried to parse this. "What's that mean?"

Tony just grinned at him, smirking as though to say, _You poor bastard_. "You'll find out."

He took a sip of his coffee, and Steve took a sip of his chocolate in kind.

"Do we live here?"

Tony tilted his head from side-to-side and shrugged some. "Sometimes. It's hard to explain without spoiling too much. Let's just say we have this place, and we have a place in the city, too."

Steve's eyebrows went up in surprise. "The city?" he asked. "Isn't that—" he swallowed, "—kind of expensive?"

Tony winked at him, smiling as he did so. "You're worth it. And yes, I'm flirting with you. This is what flirting looks like."

Steve swallowed again, a red-hot flush flooding his cheeks, and Tony furrowed his brow and tilted his head in thought.

"Because a man is flirting with you, or because I know how shit you are at flirting?"

Steve shrugged. "I, uh, I don't know," he said, speaking like his throat was coated in gravel.

Tony made a contemplative noise and twitched his mouth from side-to-side. "So, probably not the best time to tell you we have explored every square inch of each other's bodies and then some, huh?"

Steve squeezed his cup of chocolate so hard the lid popped off and the cardboard crushed in his hands, sending hot liquid all over himself and the couch.

Tony jumped back and said, "Shit, Steve!" then got up and disappeared from the room. Steve just stared down at the remnants of his drink and tried to slow his pulse and his breathing from their heightened alert.

God, what that implied about them—! He closed his eyes and tried very, very hard not to think about touching Tony's body in the ways he'd been imagining since he'd first woken up. And not just his face or his shoulders or his torso but...other places. Below the waist. Places that went hard and rigid and leaked fluid if worked just the right—

"_Shit!_" he hissed as he looked down to see himself half-hard, even with a wet lap of liquid chocolate. He cringed and tried to sit so his arousal wasn't that obvious, but somehow, Tony happened to come back into the room just as Steve had positioned himself to make his arousal _more _noticeable. Tony, towels in hand, stopped short and let his gaze dart down to Steve's lap, and Steve watched as Tony tried very hard not to smile, biting his lips, and then sobered enough to meet Steve's gaze.

"Didn't know dumping hot chocolate did it for you like that."

"It doesn't," he replied, his voice sounding feeble even to his own ear, and Tony held out a couple towels to him.

"Then you should probably do this yourself, yeah? Don't want you to, uh…"

He snatched the towels away from Tony, and he made a pathetic attempt at trying to pat himself dry while Tony worked at mopping up the chocolate that had gone on the couch. Tony made a contemplative noise and said, "Never liked this one, anyway. Just throw it out and get a new one."

Steve turned to him, nearly scandalized by his words. "_New _one? There's nothing wrong with it." He grimaced as he looked at the mess over his shirt and pajama pants. "We can just…wash it up somehow. It'll be fine."

"Yeah, really, babe? Not a problem. We've…got a few bucks in the bank— Well, _I _have a few bucks, but marital assets and all that, so, _we've _got a few bucks to spare. It's OK. We can totally afford to replace this. It's going to stink after a while." He stopped talking a moment then said, almost to himself, "Wonder if Barton's in the market for a slightly-used sofa?"

"Tony, it's fine. We can… We can clean it. It's fine."

Tony huffed out a breath and stood up to his full height, and he reached a hand out and cupped under Steve's chin to direct his attention to him. Steve looked up and met dark brown eyes lined with inky black lashes, the sparkle therein almost mesmerizing to him.

"I will pull you out of that tenement way of thinking if it's the last thing I do."

He left the room again, the wet towels and the remnants of Steve's cup in hand, and he called back, "Go upstairs and get changed! You're going to be miserable the rest of the day if you don't — and don't give me any of that shit about 'back during the war'! War ended a long time ago!"

Steve sighed and ran a hand through his hair. He made a face at the sticky feeling on this hand and decided he didn't want to feel that anywhere else, so he got to his feet and climbed up the stairs back to the second floor.

He went back into the bedroom and looked around. He didn't see any suitcases lying about, so he went over to the dresser and pulled open a couple drawers until he found one filled with socks and underwear. It wasn't too hard to figure out which belonged to him and which to Tony — God, just the fact that… He shook his head and ignored the pile of colorful briefs and instead grabbed a dark gray pair of those snug boxers he'd awoken to find himself dressed in. He grabbed a t-shirt and found another set of those pajama pants with the strange faces on them and went into the bathroom to get himself cleaned up.

He closed the door behind him, and he set the clean clothes on the sink then went about stripping the wet ones from his body. Much to his grief, his cock yearned for attention, and thoughts of Tony's lithe, lean, sinewy body in mind, he closed his eyes and reached down to palm himself, the flush covering his face equal parts embarrassment and arousal. He wanted to say it was Tony's fault for mentioning the fact that they had explored every square inch of each other's bodies, but it was nothing but his own fault for finding the thought of that so absolutely tantalizing that he wanted Tony to show him exactly _how _they'd mapped each other's bodies. With their hands?

Their mouths? Had they…_tasted_…each other? Been inside each other? Made each other cry out in unbridled passion?

He could see it clear as day in his mind's eye — Tony, on his knees in front of him, looking up at him with those big, dark eyes as he dragged his tongue up Steve's shaft from hilt to tip then took him fully in mouth, swallowing him down in one gulp, his eyes never leaving Steve's. And then Steve would reach out and grasp him by the back of the head and hold him there, and they'd gaze into each other's eyes as Steve thrust into his mouth, Tony's tongue gliding against his prick, until he couldn't take it any longer, and he came, spilling everything down the back of Tony's throat and making him swallow it, making him take it all, and Tony greedily and happily slurping down everything that he—

He gasped as he came, hot streaks of pearly-white painting his abdomen and hand, and he opened his eyes and looked at the mess that he'd made and said a quiet, "_Shit_," then looked around for something to clean himself up with.

"Babe?" Tony asked with a knock at the door, and Steve cringed and made a face and said a prayer to God above for Tony not to open that door, which, considering what he'd just done, was a strange thing to ask God's help for, but desperate times called for desperate measures.

"Uh, yea— _yeah_?" he asked, hoping his voice didn't belie his recent indiscretion.

"You OK in there? You don't need help, do you?"

"Uh," he said and looked around then grabbed a handful of toilet paper from the roll. "No! No, I, uh, I got it. I mean I'm OK. I mean—"

He was just starting to mop up the mess when Tony pushed into the room, and Steve stopped in his tracks in the middle of wiping off his abdomen. Tony's gaze zeroed in on what he was doing, and Steve stood there, mortified, waiting for the ball to drop. He didn't know how it was going to drop; he just knew that it was.

Tony let out a breath, and all he said was, "You know, I could've helped you with that."

"It wasn't— I didn't— I didn't mean—" he stuttered out, but Tony just grabbed a washcloth from the shower, and he wet it in the sink then went about wiping off Steve's abdomen.

"Not the worst thing I've seen you do," Tony said as Steve burned red with humiliation. "Not the worst thing you've seen me do, either."

Steve didn't know what to say to that, so he just kept his mouth shut and waited for Tony to finish what he was doing, and he totally did _not _picture Tony cleaning up the mess with his tongue either.

Jesus, where were these thoughts coming from?

He closed his eyes and took a breath, and Tony said, "Just the usual morning business or something more?"

Steve swallowed, and he opened his eyes to look at Tony but couldn't find it in him to say anything to confirm or deny, and Tony nodded once like it explained everything for him.

"Something more," he said and rinsed the cloth out, and before he could help himself, Steve said, "You're a good-looking man."

This seemed to surprise Tony, if the way he turned was any indication, his mouth clamped shut but his eyebrows raised slightly.

"I mean, in general, you're— Uh, I used to be an art student, and you've got— Um, your physique is, uh—"

"You want to draw me like one of your French girls?" Tony said, a somewhat amused smile on his lips.

"Huh?"

Tony shook his head. "Nothing. Movie reference you won't understand for a while. So, got the hots for me, huh, old man?"

"It's not like that—" he tried to say, but Tony shrugged.

"Didn't say it was a bad thing. Just glad to know you can get it up because of me." He reached up on his toes and pecked a kiss at the corner of Steve's mouth. "I do sort of worry sometimes…"

He wasn't actually sure if Tony trailed off or if that was the end of his thought. He just watched as Tony moved about the bathroom, hanging the cloth up to dry, grabbing Steve's old, wet clothes and tossing them into the clothes hamper. Steve, dry now, grabbed his clothes off the sink and stepped into them, and though he logically knew he was embarrassed by what Tony had seen him doing, at the same time, he wasn't as embarrassed as he thought he should have been.

He left the bathroom, and Tony was sitting on the bed staring down at some small, black, rectangular thing in his hand.

"Why didn't it bother me?" he asked without preamble.

Tony glanced up from whatever it was he was looking at. "What?"

Steve swallowed. "That you— That I—"

"That I caught you jerking off?"

"I guess if you want to call it that," he murmured.

Tony shrugged and set that small, black device down. "I don't know if I can answer that. The most I can say is that when it comes to you and I and the things we've seen on and done to each other, there's really no stone left unturned. Maybe some of that's muscle memory on your part. I don't know. Not the worst side I've seen of you, at any rate."

Steve scratched at the back of his head. "So, you mean we—"

"Fuck?" Tony suggested, and Steve scowled at him.

"Don't say it like that! We don't— It's more than that, isn't it?"

Tony just grinned at him. "Yes," he said like this was all part of some joke Steve didn't understand. "It's a lot more than that. You might even say we _make love _to each other."

Steve was still trying to wrap his head around the fact that he could openly talk about something like this and not have to worry about looking over his shoulder for a cop or an MP or someone that could report him to some higher authority.

"Well, what's wrong with that?"

Tony just laughed and stood up. "Nothing," he said and went up on his toes again to peck a kiss against Steve's mouth. "Absolutely nothing, you pathetic, old sap."

Steve parted his lips almost on instinct, and Tony took his bottom lip between his teeth and tugged on it just the slightest. Then he grinned so much that his eyes crinkled and his nose scrunched a bit, and he laughed and said, "Come on. Some of us still have coffee left."

He took Steve's hand and made to lead him back to the stairs, and Steve started to follow until the slightly ajar door across the hall caught his eye. He stopped, forcing Tony to stop as well, and somehow, Tony seemed to know exactly what he was thinking.

"Look, but do not touch," he said. "She's down for the count. If she stays there another half-hour or so, we should be good 'til the afternoon."

Steve just nodded at him, and Tony put his finger to his lips to shush him then motioned him over to the nursery. He pushed the door open slowly, cringing as the hinges creaked, but he still motioned Steve in behind him. Steve followed, taking his steps as quietly as he could, and they crept over to the crib.

He looked down at the contentedly sleeping form therein, some weird pang hitting him square in the chest as he considered that somehow this was his child. Not biologically, of course. She looked too much like Tony for that. But this little girl with the wispy blonde hair and the big, dark eyes that babbled at him and called him 'Daddy'…

He made a motion to reach out and brush the hair on top of her head, but Tony murmured beside him, "You break it, you buy it."

"Huh?" he asked, hand poised above the baby's head as he considered the man beside him a moment.

Tony nodded at the crib. "She wakes up, you deal with her. And she is _too _much like you for her own good."

"I don't think that's possible," he said but still pulled his hand away, and Tony shrugged.

"Wanna bet?" He motioned Steve back out of the room. "You can play later," he said as he pulled the door so it was only opened a fraction once more. "My ears are still ringing from that shit she pulled last week."

He frowned as he followed Tony back down the stairs. "That's a terrible attitude to take to a child."

Tony just snorted a laugh. "Yeah, let's have this conversation again after you've been woken up by her at all hours of the morning or been upchucked on by her or have lost years off your life worrying because she went tumbling head-first into Dummy's chassis."

Steve went to ask what 'Dummy' or his (its?) chassis was, but Tony continued as they made their way back into the living room.

"Head wounds bleed like a son-of-a-bitch. I'm sure you know that, though."

"I've found that to be the case," he said and settled into a big, overstuffed chair. Tony sat adjacent to him on the side of the couch that wasn't soaked in chocolate.

"I didn't know what worrying was until I became a parent," he mused. "Corny as it sounds, I didn't know what 'love' was either. Not to say I didn't love you, babe, but it's a different kind of love. You feel it in your bones — at least I do. Or maybe that's 'cause I—"

He clamped his mouth shut and shook his head, and when he next started talking, it was as though he had changed the subject.

"So, yes, she pulls some shit, and it's only going to get worse the older she gets, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't defend her with every fiber of my being. Not one thing I wouldn't do for that little girl. You'll understand someday."

Steve raised an eyebrow in challenge. "Are you saying I don't?"

Tony rolled his eyes. "Put that thing away. I mean you as you are at this moment don't really understand that. _My _Steve understands that, but you're not my Steve. Yet."

"And you're sure I will be?"

Tony nodded. "Yep."

"How?"

Tony merely shrugged. "You told me."

"When?"

"A while back— _Well_, a while back for _me_. For you, it hasn't happened yet. It will. Count on it."

"Thought you said I only remembered this last night?"

Tony sat back in his seat, nodding sagely as he did so. "Ah, yes, the technicality. My dear, sweet, darling husband informed me of this adventure of his a while ago but never went into detail about it. I didn't think anything of it then. Kinda had a lot of other things on my mind at the time. _Last night_, my dear, sweet, darling husband suddenly remembered oh, yeah, today was the day it happened."

Steve just furrowed his brow. "And you believed him— I mean _me_— I mean _him?_"

"Yeah," Tony said like it was the simplest thing in the world.

"Why?"

"Joke answer? Because he's Captain America. Real answer? Because this sort of shit keeps happening to us, and it's becoming less of an 'Oh my god! What's going on?' and more of a 'Jesus Christ, what's going on _now?_'

"This sort of thing has happened before?"

"Well, not exactly," Tony said and reached out to grab his coffee. He took a long, slow sip and swallowed before he added, "More this fits the pattern of crazy shit that keeps happening to us."

"Like what?"

Tony shook his head. "Nope. I went in blind to this shit. So are you.

Steve grinned, trying for the boyish charm that had disarmed Tony in the car. "Come on! Not even a little hint?"

But Tony wouldn't look at him and just said, "Nope! Don't even try that coy, bashful, golly-gee-willikers shit on me! Might work for some people—"

"Yeah? Get the feeling it works extra-well on you."

Tony met his gaze, and there was stubborn confrontation wired into his jaw, but there was also a twinkle of warm delight in his eye.

"I hate you."

Steve gave him a lopsided smile and drawled out, "I don't think you do."

But this just set confusion over Tony's visage, and he frowned and said, "Wait, you're flirting with me. I've been under the impression since, oh, Stuttgart that you didn't know shit about flirting. Were you lying— Have you been lying to me this whole time?"

Steve could only shrug. "Honestly? I couldn't tell you."

Tony just stared at him a moment, his lips pursed like he was fighting between arguing the point and admitting Steve was right.

"Goddamn it, you can't, can you?" he muttered and folded his arms and Steve laughed.

"Sorry," he said, and Tony made a noise like he was considering Steve's apology.

"I'll forgive you this one time," he said, but it was light and teasing, and though his mouth was set in a pout, his eyes twinkled with mischief and delight, and Steve thought for probably not the first time that day that Tony really did have beautiful eyes — maybe the most beautiful eyes he'd ever seen. He didn't even realize he'd been staring at them for as long as he had until Tony said, "See something you like?"

Steve swallowed and looked away, muttering a, "Sorry," as he did so. This time, Tony laughed.

"Look, babe? It's OK. You can stare at me as much and as long as you want. I mean, I can't really blame you for it."

"Modest fella."

"Yeah, well," Tony said with a blasé shrug, but didn't qualify the words after that, and so Steve steered the conversation in another direction.

"What happened in Stuttgart?"

Tony shook his head, a slow smile spreading over his face. "Nuh uh. Not a peep out of me."

"Come on! Was it important?"

"I don't know. Was it?"

"Don't start. Just tell me."

"Nope. Can't chance fucking things up. Though now that I think about it—"

He stopped talking abruptly and pursed his lips and scrunched his face in thought.

"You had to have remembered this then, didn't you? I mean didn't it—? And when I told you about—?" He clamped his mouth a moment then added, "Unless my not being so…" He blinked and looked at Steve, and Steve watched as Tony's eyes skirted all over his face before he said with an exhale of breath, "Well, probably only a couple months difference, anyway. Worked past it soon enough."

"What are you—"

"Hmm? Oh, nothing. Just thinking out loud. Don't mind me. Geniuses do it all the time."

Steve grinned at him. "Again, modest fella."

"Eh, I try."

"So, you're a genius?"

"To a point."

"Can I ask you something?"

"Shoot."

"That little black thing you were looking at before. What is that?"

Tony just grinned, his eyes lighting up, and he sat forward and made like he was going to pull something out of his pocket when he suddenly realized he didn't have one on him.

"Shit!" he said and jumped up. "Don't move!" he said, putting his hands out as though to push Steve back into the chair he hadn't even attempted to vacate, and Steve watched as he went around the couch and made a mad dash out into the foyer and then up the stairs.

For being forty-something, Tony was still pretty damned spry.

He listened to the sounds of Tony thumping around upstairs before he heard the telltale sounds of Tony dashing back down the steps, but as soon as he hit the doorway to the living room, his slowed his motions and made like he was coolly and casually strolling back into the room, that little black device in his hand.

"This," he said as he sat back down and held the thing out to him, "is a next-generation Starkphone. Not even on the market yet. Still a prototype."

Steve frowned and took the thing from him. It was black and shiny on one side like it was plated with glass. There were openings in it that looked like they might have been for different plugs — one look like a miniature telephone jack — and small buttons in various places, and he looked up at Tony and said, "What's a Starkphone?"

"It's a cellphone — well, a brand of cellphone. My company makes them."

"Stark?" Steve asked, finding that to be the first familiar thing he'd come across all day. "Like Howard Stark?"

Tony's smile faltered ever so slightly. "Yeah," he said, his voice clipped. "Sure."

He didn't like the look on Tony's face, so he turned his attention back to the 'cellphone' in his hand. "But what does it do?"

"No," Tony said and reached out to take it from him. "The question, my love, is what _doesn't _it do? And the answer to that is 'not much.'"

He tapped the shiny, glass plate, and the heretofore black surface of it lit up. Steve looked closer and saw there a picture of a man that looked an awful lot like him holding that little girl in the crib upstairs, their cheeks pressed together as they looked into the lens of the camera. He was pointing at the camera, and she held that colorful plush toy in her small grasp. Neither one was exactly smiling, but there was a lightness and a softness to their looks, and Steve could understand it as being a much-loved candid photo of two people that Tony appeared to adore.

"Oh," Tony muttered. "Yeah, that's you and the brat. Took that the other day when we were trying to bake cookies for the party. Yes, I bake. Shut up. It's awesome, and I'm fucking awesome at it. It's because it's fun; it's not because—"

He cut off abruptly, and Steve tried to meet Tony's eyes to ask him to finish his thought, but Tony was too busy pressing his thumbs against the screen as though he was typing something onto it.

"It's not because _what?_"

"Hmm?" Tony said and looked up from the cellphone.

"Oh, nothing. Don't worry about it."

"Because of what?"

But Tony just ignored him and leaned in closer to show him something. "I mean, it does everything. Phone calls. Texts. Internet. All the best apps. Photos. Oh, and firewalls?" He scoffed. "No match for this baby. Can break through them—" he snapped his fingers, "—like that."

Steve just blinked at the tiny little implement in Tony's hand. How that could something that small and seemingly fragile break through a brick firewall?

He decided not to ask, feeling that to do so would be just too embarrassing a maneuver for him. Instead, he focused on another word that had caught his attention but made no sense to him.

"What's the internet?"

"A series of tubes," Tony said in all seriousness, but when Steve nodded his forced understanding, Tony said, "I'm bullshitting you. It's— Yeah, OK, that one's kind of dated. It's…"

He sat back in his seat and hummed in thought then said, "It's sort of like… Think of it like the wire service. It's an exchange of information, cat pictures, and pornography."

Steve's eyes went wide, his eyebrows raising halfway up his forehead.

"Yeah, no, I'm not exaggerating. Three most popular things on the internet. But it's kind of like the wire service — you know how you're always connected to the wire service? It's like that but a massive group of people are sending out information and messages at the same time, and they're all talking to each other, and you interface with a computer— er, a television screen. Text and pictures. Videos. Audio. It's… It's really amazing when you get down to it. Everything's done on the internet now. Which is both good and bad. Unfortunately, everyone seems to think they're entitled to their fifteen minutes of fame now, and with the internet, well…"

Steve tried to picture what Tony was explaining to him, but he was having a hard time with it, and so Tony pushed at the surface like he was typing something out. After a moment, he turned the cellphone to Steve, and Steve saw himself in full color, that shorter haircut, and dressed in ridiculously casual clothes, especially considering that he appeared to be sitting for an interview with some woman that was asking him questions about his personal life. He watched as this identical stranger smiled at the woman — and he recognized that smile as his 'polite' smile that he gave when he really wanted to pick a fight — and explained in answer to the question of 'Is Captain America gay?'—

"_Captain America isn't anything. Steve Rogers? Me? I'm bisexual. I always have been. I didn't know it, maybe — I didn't know that's what it was or that's what it was called — but that doesn't change the fact that I've always been this way. It's just now it's not something you have to hide like it was then._"

"_But the mere fact that you are in a relationship with Tony—_" the interviewer tried to interrupt, but the Steve on the screen put his hand up, his jaw tensing in that way that he knew it did when he was trying to stifle his frustrations.

"_Look, I'm going to stop you right there because it's no one's business who I choose to spend my life with outside of me and that person. I know the media wants to make it their business, but it's not, and it's not the public's either. We all have skeletons in our closets. We all have done things we're not proud of. And just the fact that he's held to a higher standard than I am is ridiculous. Tony's no saint, but neither am I. He's not evil incarnate, either, no matter what people say or no matter what image he's trying to project. I spent years thinking there was something wrong with me — something so wrong that the serum couldn't even fix it. I mean, it fixed everything else about me — everything else that was defective about me — but it couldn't fix this? How awful, or how _bad _was this then that even the serum couldn't touch it? But it's not 'wrong.' There's nothing 'wrong' with me, and finally, for I think the first time in my life, I've found someone that I can be myself with. Maybe it's not who the public wants me to be with, but it's my life, and I'm going to live it the way that makes me happiest_."

Tony tapped on the screen to freeze the image, one of the on-screen Steve setting a Very Serious Gaze upon the interviewer sitting beside him, and Tony said, "That's the internet — or what you can find on the internet, anyway. All sorts of shit like that."

But Steve just continued to stare at the screen, and he pointed at it like he'd just seen a mirage and said, "That's… Was that me?"

"Yep," Tony said and pulled the phone away from Steve's line of sight.

He just swallowed and tried to process everything he'd heard himself say. "That… They didn't arrest me for that? Or drum me out of the service?"

"Not illegal, babe. And, technically, you're not in the service anymore." He motioned at the phone.

"But they still call me 'Captain,' don't they?"

Tony shrugged, his fingers moving over the surface like he was typing something more in. "More a code name than anything now, I think. I mean, you lead that band of freak show rejects that likes to call ourselves the Avengers, but 'Captain' is really just a honorary title at this point — same as Natasha and that asshole Barton are 'Agent' or Barne— uh, the one-armed man is 'Sergeant.'"

Cold, brutal awareness slapped Steve in the face at that. It was a coincidence, sure, but the 'sergeant' rank as well as the name — he presumed it was supposed to be the person's name — sounding an awful lot like 'Barnes.' He could only see his failures, only see Bucky falling from the train because he was too slow or too stupid or too _something _to rescue his friend the _one _— the _only _— time he'd ever needed him to.

He closed his eyes and shook his head, and Tony must have sensed that Steve wasn't as happy- go-lucky as he'd been a moment before, as the next words out of his mouth came in the form of a very concerned, "Babe? You OK? You still with me?"

He swallowed the lump of emotion that had bubbled up into his throat and said a gravelly and unsteady, "Yeah, sure."

He opened his eyes, and in his peripheral vision, he could see Tony frown in concern at him. "Babe? Honey? What's wrong? OK, maybe not the video I should have shown you, but—"

He shook his head. "No, not— It wasn't that. That was… I still can't believe I said those words. I'm not sure I do believe it. It's just… It's nothing."

Tony tilted his head some like he was trying to catch Steve's eyes from beneath his eyelashes. "You sure? Just so you're aware, you're a shit liar, and I know you're lying to me now. I'm not taking offense to it, but I just want you to be aware you're not fooling me."

Steve met his gaze only a moment before he looked away, and he closed his eyes and mentally scowled at himself for allowing himself to feel so…so…_happy_. At peace. Welcome. _Loved_.

Christ's sake, Bucky was dead, and it was all his fault! He didn't think there were enough 'Hail Mary's in the world that could constitute adequate penance for that.

"I shouldn't be here," he muttered. "Not with you. Not—"

But Tony sat forward in his seat some, setting the blackened cellphone on the coffee table, and he folded his arms and rested his elbows on his knees and said, "Why? Why not?"

But Steve just shook his head and said, "I shouldn't be here."

"You said so. Why? You don't _want _to be here?"

Steve summed up the courage to meet Tony's gaze again and said, "My best friend's dead because of me," and rather than the shock or disgust that he figured would be Tony's reaction, instead, he got understanding.

"Oh," Tony said with a knowing nod. He exhaled a breath then unfolded his arms and reached out to take Steve's hands in his. "Honey, I've told you a _thousand _times before and you never listen, but no, it wasn't your fault—"

"It was—"

"It wasn't. I don't even know why I'm saying this. Hell, even my Steve doesn't believe me. But trust me, it's not your fault. You did everything that you could—"

"I didn't. I let him fall. I let him die. I—"

Tony rolled his eyes. "What were you supposed to do? Jump after him?" He gave a hard tug on Steve's hands so that Steve would look at him, and when he did, Tony shot a pointed gaze his way and said in a very clipped and harsh tone, "Stop jumping off of, out of, and into things. You are going to kill me if you keep doing that. My heart cannot take you pulling that stupid shit time and time again. Are we clear?"

Steve kept his gaze locked with Tony's. He didn't believe him about Bucky. It was his fault Bucky had died. No matter what Peggy said, the report was what mattered, and the report said...

"Steven," Tony said, his voice even but serious, "get out of that train of thought. It wasn't your fault. You did everything you could. I know you just lost him, and I know this makes me sound like a complete asshole, but all the blame in the world that you heap on yourself isn't going to bring him back. Mourn him, sure, but don't deny yourself happiness because of circumstances beyond your control. Would he want you do to that?"

Their eyes did a dance together before Steve let out a short breath and said a quiet, "No."

"Well, there you go."

"Probably wouldn't be too happy I got myself a fella, no matter how rich he is, though."

Tony tilted his head some but still didn't break their locked gaze. "Why not?"

He blew out a breath and thought about how best to explain it. "It's a tough kind of life," he finally settled on. "A lot easier to just find yourself a dame and settle down with her."

"Yeah, but it's not fair to her," Tony said. "I mean, if you're just settling for her—"

"I didn't say that—"

"Really? Because that's what it sounds like to me. Look, honey, I get that during the war it looked like the easier road, but nowadays? Doesn't really matter. Like I said, Supreme Court ruled on it. It's legal nationwide. I don't just mean sodomy, I mean marriage period. Two men, two women, man-and-woman — doesn't matter. Wouldn't your pal just want you to be happy no matter who it was with?"

"Yeah."

Tony nodded at him. "Like I said, there you go. Toast his memory, light a candle for him if you need to, but don't throw yourself into some overblown mourning. You know he wouldn't want you to do that. You know he'd want you to go on living your life."

He nodded his understanding but stayed quiet. Tony was right, in a way. Bucky wouldn't want him to spend the rest of his life crying over him, no, but it _was _Steve's fault that he was dead, and it really was the height of distaste for him to just shrug and say 'too bad' for his oldest and closest friend before he went and played house with Tony — with a _man_.

But, if Tony was truly on the level here, all of those worries were from a long, long time ago. Bucky was dead, and Tony was right. No amount of overblown or overdramatic mourning was going to bring him back. Bucky would want him to go on living his life, he'd want him to be happy, and maybe that was the best way to honor his friend's memory: to finally _listen _to him for once.

He cracked the smallest smile and said, "What do you mean jump off of things?"

Tony exhaled a breath and dropped his head a moment, but he picked it right back up and met Steve's gaze again.

"I mean," he said, and there was a funny tone to his voice that was equal parts amusement and frustration, "that you're a goddamned adrenaline junkie, and your entire existence in life now seems to be finding new and unusual ways of trying to give me a stroke by pulling one dumbass move after another. So yes, you jump off of things or out of things or into things because you think you're always going to land on your feet except, you know what? You're made of flesh and blood just like the rest of us. Knock. It. Off."

He considered this a moment — it really didn't sound all that far-fetched to him — then said, "What would your Steve say to that?"

Tony could do nothing but groan. "He'd just laugh, the fucker, and tell me not to worry because he knows what he's doing. Why? Because he's Captain America. Babe, that _cannot _be your catch- all. The rest of the team makes fun of you for it when they're not asking you whether you invented fire or the wheel."

"Age jokes?"

"So very, very many."

"Do you get in on that?"

"Me?" he scoffed. "Of course not."

Steve frowned at this logic. "You call me 'old man' as a term of endearment."

Tony just blinked, seemingly not seeing anything wrong with this. "Yeah. You are. You're my old man. Just like Olivia's my baby girl. I'm not seeing how that's bad or—"

"How long have we been together again?"

Tony sucked in a breath. "Jesus, talk about whiplash. When you're not laser-focused on something, you have the attention span of a gnat."

"Are you avoiding answering the question?"

"No, I'm making fun of you," he said, but Steve realized Tony still had a hold of his hands and was brushing his thumbs over Steve's clasped fingers. "To answer your question _again_, Captain Smart-ass, 'bout three-and-a-half years now."

"That's it?"

Tony jerked back a little. "Uh… That's not long enough for you?"

But Steve shrugged. "You're in your forties; I'm ninety-seven. We couldn't have just met, what, four years ago, could we?"

Tony didn't move a muscle except to say, "Why not?"

Honestly, Steve didn't know why not, but he said, "Because… We must have…known each other for longer than that. Right? I mean, we're both old enough to have known each other twenty years — maybe more than that."

Tony only said, "Technically, sure."

"We haven't?"

Tony just tweaked a brief smile at him. "Can't say. Don't want to spoil the surprise."

"So, what's that thing on the wall?"

Tony rolled his eyes in an exaggerated motion. "Again, the mood whiplash with you is mind-boggling. It's a television."

"No!" Steve said, disbelief flooding his voice. He got up and made his way over to the screen. "I saw it at the World's Fair," he said and inspected the black, rectangular box. "Didn't look like this."

Tony relaxed back into his chair and said, "That was also a thousand years ago. Things change. I'd say we also have FM radio now, but we're already up to satellite, so who cares about that?"

Steve glanced back at him from where he stood at the set looking for the antenna. "FM? What's that?" He pointed to the set. "Doesn't this have an antenna?"

"Frequency modulation. And no. Time Warner owns our souls."

"Time Warner?"

"Think the magazine and the movie studio."

"Really?"

Tony waved an airy hand in the air. "Or one of their parents or subsidiaries. I don't know. They change that shit all the time. One company merges with another, or they rename or rebrand. Hard to keep up. Got my own company and my own shit to deal with— _well_, Pepper does the dealing with the company now. That's why they pay her the big bucks. I'm just a figurehead."

Steve shot a smile at him and went back to inspecting the television. "I'm going to pretend I understood half of those words."

"Eh, don't worry about it. It's cable. Coaxial cable. That's how they transmit the sound and the image, anyway. Want to watch something? Think the next showing of _A Christmas Story _is just starting."

Steve looked at the black surface of the box and shook his head. "Not right now." He turned back to Tony. "What did you mean when you said I wouldn't let you install Friday here? What's that?"

Tony let out a laugh. "That might be a little too—" He sat upright and rested his elbows on his knees. "It's kind of hard to explain when I don't even think you know what a computer is yet."

"Someone that computes things?"

Tony seemed to consider this a moment, head tilted and mouth pursed. "You're not wrong. No, it's more of an electronic brain. You can program it to do all sorts of stuff. Friday's kind of our personal…virtual right-hand gal. It's—" He stopped short and shook his head. "You don't need to worry about it. She's not here, and you're not going to meet her for a while, so…"

"Oh," he said and tried to hide his disappointment. It sounded kind of interesting, actually, and he kind of wanted to see what it really looked like. "So, there's more of us?"

"Hmm? What do you mean? 'Us' as in our little family—?"

"No, ah, what'd you call us? The Avengers?"

"Oh!" Tony said with a broad and knowing nod. "Yeah, right. Avengers. Uh, there's— Our ranks have grown over the years. Started with just the six of us. The number of us that's called ourselves Avengers goes into the double digits now."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

He motioned between them. "And we, uh, lead them?"

Tony nodded. "As much as they can be led, anyway. Barton, that asshole, likes to call us 'Mom and Dad.' No, I don't know who's supposed to be who, though I can guess, and the fact that _I'm _one of the responsible ones doesn't say much for the relative maturity of the rest of them."

Steve scratched at the back of his head. "They, ah— Any of them around? I mean, any chance we might bump into any of them?"

"Yeah, no, sorry 'bout that. We were kind of dicks about the whole 'can we have one holiday to ourselves?' thing, so they promised to leave us alone until the day after. Which is a shame because I think you'd get a big kick out of them. I mean, I know you've got your little band of commandos at this point, but they're all just your garden-variety humans, right?"

"Yeah," Steve said, a little uneasy from Tony's words. What was he implying by that?

But Tony just scratched at his expertly-groomed jaw and said, "The Avengers…aren't exactly the same. I mean, we've got an actual Norse god on the team. OK, he's an alien, but the Scandinavians thought he was a god. Then we've got the Spy Twins, the one-armed assassin, the android, the witch, the giant, green rage-monster, the War Machine, your jogging buddy, and those bugs from out west — sometimes. I guess you'd call it an eclectic group."

"I guess so," Steve said and tried to form some sort of picture of all of those people — things? — in his head. He finally gave up and heaved out a breath as he shook his head. "How in world do they all manage to work together?"

"Because they — _we _— all listen to you. Everyone listens to Captain America. You're the only one that can corral that passel of misfits and turn them into something resembling an actual team. Even I can't do that."

"Captain America, huh? Anyone listen to boring, old Steve Rogers?"

Tony just laughed. "_Old?_"

"'Old man' is your pet name for me," Steve muttered and shot a knowing and somewhat unimpressed look at him.

Tony merely smiled back, soft and knowing. "You're not wrong," he murmured, pure love and affection in his voice before he sobered and added, "But boring? Steve Rogers? That smart- mouthed punk that's never followed an order in his life? The man that charges headlong into battle, has jumped out of airplanes, off of buildings, into the jaws of death, and pulled so many other crazy stunts that he's taken years off my life? That guy? Sometimes I wish that guy was a bit more boring. My nervous system could use the break."

Steve's stomach made a wretched sound as soon as Tony said this, and he cringed and hoped Tony hadn't heard it, but Tony just glanced at his abdomen and said, "Guess that half-a-hot-chocolate wasn't enough to hold you over, was it?"

"I could go for some grub," he admitted, and Tony slapped his hands to his knees and pushed himself to his feet.

"Tell you what? She's slept long enough. How 'bout you go grab the munchkin, and I'll grab us something to chow down on?"

"Uh, you mean go get…?" He motioned upstairs, pointing a finger in that direction, and Tony laughed some.

"She doesn't bite, and she very much enjoys having her daddy scoop her out of her crib."

Steve grimaced, and he scratched at the back of his head and said, "Yeah, uh, I just— I don't have much experience with kids. I don't really know how to—"

"You had to kiss babies during your tenure as a chorus girl, didn't you?"

Steve just glared at him — _really? _Tony knew about that, too? — and Tony's eyes went wide as he muttered a quiet, "Holy shit," then reached down to the table and grabbed his cellphone. He held it up in front of his face, and as Steve continued to glare at Tony, a flash went off at him, and Tony said, "Grumpy cat personified," before he pressed his thumbs against the shiny surface of the instrument.

"What?" he asked, not sure that he wanted to know what this 'grumpy cat' was.

"Nothing," Tony answered quickly, "just an in— Oh, shit. I just sent that to all the Avengers, which means you got it, too." He glanced up and tweaked a smile at Steve. "Don't get too mad at me. Also, don't get too mad at the others when they 'shop it and make it into some sort of motivational poster."

"_What?"_

Tony shook his head and patted his arm. "Nothing, babe. I'll go get us some grub. You get the sprog."

Steve could only sigh, and against his better judgment, he did as Tony suggested, climbing up the stairs and making headway to the nursery where he'd last seen Olivia.

He pushed the door open, expecting to have to wake her up, but she was already sitting up in her crib, babbling to herself as she played with some of the plush toys in her crib, and Steve stood over her and smiled and said, "Hey, uh, kid. Your, ah, other dad wants me to grab you, so…"

She looked up at him and very earnestly babbled something at him that he thought was supposed to be a question, but the words just didn't translate in his head, and he shrugged at her and said, "I'm sorry. I'm not your real dad, so I don't know what you're— Does he usually understand what you're saying?"

Olivia pulled herself to her feet, that one particular plush toy in hand, and she reached out one small arm and said, "Daddy, up."

He scratched at his forehead but said, "Yeah, I think— Yeah, I think I can do that."

He took a breath, squared his shoulders, and then reached in and scooped her up then swung her into his arms. She went with it, seeming to find the action nothing out of the ordinary, and he settled her against his chest. There was something warm and comforting about having her in his arms, and he cuddled her closer and breathed in that light, sweet scent that all babies seemed to have about them (he didn't have much experience with them, but he had enough to know there was a certain scent babies had about them). He brushed his lips over her forehead and then smiled when their gazes met, her dark eyes staring right back into his blue ones.

"You know, you're heavier than you look," he told her, and she just babbled and turned her head in the direction of the door. "Oh, you want to go back downstairs, do you? See what your…other dad is up to. Are we both 'Daddy'? How does that work?"

Olivia provided no answers, instead choosing to remain quiet as Steve carried her back downstairs, and he made to go into the living room but decided he'd scope out the rest of the downstairs just to see if…

Look, he wasn't still under the impression this was Hydra's doing, but he just…he wanted to make sure he wasn't missing anything. That's all.

There was a large, formal dining room on the opposite side of the foyer to the living room, and Steve passed through that, marveling at the furniture and décor that looked like it cost a fortune, before he passed through a butler's pantry and then came into a large, sleek-looking kitchen.

Tony was busy puttering around, humming to himself as he set up a plate of bagels and some small containers that, well, Steve didn't know what they were. As Tony turned and reached into a cabinet, Steve craned his neck to check out the goods and saw something about 'cream cheese' printed over the foil cover of the container. He shrugged as Tony turned back around, two mugs in hand, and said, "Can never have enough coffee," then set them on the counter and went over to another counter where some apparatus was…brewing coffee, maybe? It didn't look like a vacuum pot nor one of those French press things he'd seen, but the scent was unmistakable.

Olivia was babbling in his arms, and Tony, his back to them, said, "I know, baby. In a minute. Papa's trying to get everything together so we can go have breakfast and open our presents in the living room like the ridiculously domesticated creatures we are."

"Papa?" Steve said as he turned his attention away from inspecting a beveled glass-paneled cabinet door. "You're 'Papa'?"

Tony glanced back to him. "That a problem?"

Steve shook his head. "No, just… I was wondering how that worked."

Tony hummed in understanding and nodded as he hit a drawer with his hip to close it and set a small assortment of spoons and knives beside the plate of bagels. "Yeah," he said, "you're 'Daddy.' I'm 'Papa.'"

"This kitchen's so…_shiny_."

Tony snorted a laugh. "Shiny, huh? One way of putting it. Stainless steel is the décor _du jour, mon amour_."

Steve ignored the pet name and motioned at a cabinet beside the large, dual-tub sink. "Glass cabinets?"

"It's the modern look. Kind of a far cry from the white porcelain you're used to, yeah?"

"Could say that," Steve muttered and eyed up the countertops full of various appliances. "It looks…really expensive."

Tony, on his way over to the large refrigerator — he thought it was one, anyway — went up on his toes and kissed Steve's cheek. "Only the best for my babies," he said and went over to the large, steel appliance. He pulled open two French-style doors, and Steve gawked at the light and bountiful assortment that was found there.

"Jesus," he breathed out as he moved to stand beside Tony and glance in. "Look at all this."

"Should see the one back at the Tower," Tony muttered and pulled out a small container that Steve saw had 'half-and-half' printed on it. "Have to keep that one fully stocked because that gang of idiots still hasn't gotten the memo that our personal floor is not their communal floor."

Tony closed the doors and went back over to the counter where he'd stacked all the goods, and Steve nodded his understanding as Olivia began to whine. He frowned at her and said an unsure, "Uh…?"

"She's hungry," Tony said. "Yeah, holidays are always screwed up. Hasn't had her breakfast yet."

He pulled out a large container that looked like a clear synthetic material of some kind. The top to it looked almost rubberized, and Tony pulled that off to display a wide assortment of cookies. He reached in and picked up one that was cut into a shape of some kind with red-colored sugar sprinkled on top of it, and he handed it over to Olivia, who gladly took it and stuck the top part of it into her mouth.

"That…doesn't look like a Santa or a candy cane," Steve said as Olivia munched on the cookie.

"It's not," Tony said. "It's a cookie cut out of Black Widow."

Steve frowned and took gentle hold of Olivia's hands to pull the cookie away from her mouth so that he could get a better look at it. She whined and tried to pull it back, but he just held her hands and looked over the shape that looked more like, well…

"It doesn't look like a spider," he said and let Olivia go back to crunching on it. "It looks more like the silhouette of a woman."

"It is," Tony said then sighed. "Oh, I forgot. You don't know who— Look, I don't understand half this merchandise." He reached into the container and began to pull out other cookies. "They make Avenger-shaped cut outs. We got Thor and Scarlet Witch and Vision and Falcon and Hawkeye and me and—" he pulled one last one out, "—you. I know I'm missing a few, but those must have gotten eaten already. Anyway, the proceeds go to charity, so I guess it's worth it."

Steve picked up the one that was supposed to be him — or Captain America, anyway — posed with the shield in-hand. "But it's not even Christmas-themed."

Tony shrugged. "Yeah, but you can make Christmas _cookies _with them. You completely missed the plastic, cartoon, Avenger-shaped ornaments on the tree, didn't you?"

Steve just gave him a flat look. "Ornaments?" he asked, but Tony shot a smirk at him.

"Merchandising. It's the American Way."

Steve glanced down at the pajama bottoms that both he and Tony wore. "Do other people buy this stuff or just us?"

Tony snorted a laugh and grabbed what he presumed was a pot of coffee from the counter appliance. "Avenger-shit is insanely popular. I think we're up there with Star Wars and Frozen."

"I don't know what either of those things are."

"Yeah?" Tony mused and poured two mugs of coffee. "Don't worry. You will."

The 'Frozen' thing he figured was a piece of fiction, but the 'Star Wars' thing didn't exactly set him at ease.

"Uh, was there an actual Star…War?"

Tony spit out a laugh and nearly faltered at putting the pot back into the apparatus. He turned to Steve, grinning wildly, and Steve frowned as Tony stepped over to him, cupped his face with his hands, and said, "You. Are my favorite person. Ever."

He then went up on his toes and pressed a kiss against Steve's mouth, and Steve allowed himself to follow Tony's lead until such time as Tony broke the contact and moved away again. Steve licked his lips, getting the last remnants of Tony's taste into his mouth, and tried to quash that overwhelming feeling of disappointment at the loss of contact with Tony's body. Maybe it was some — what did Tony call it? — weird muscle memory of some kind. If he was actually married to him, he was probably accustomed to _doing _things with him.

"It's a movie," Tony explained and grumbled as he tried to figure out some way of carrying the plate of bagels, the cookies, and the mugs without putting everything on a tray. "Actually, a series of movies," he amended and held the container of cookies out to Steve. "Here. Take this."

He did, and Tony grabbed the mugs in one hand, piled the flatware onto the plate with the bagels, and nodded his head toward the living room.

"_I _prefer Star _Trek_, but you seem to enjoy Star _Wars _more," he explained as Steve followed him out of the kitchen and into the living room. "I mean, they're both awesome in their own ways, but, yeah…"

Tony set the mugs and the cookies down on the coffee table, and he groaned and rolled his eyes and muttered a, "Fuck, I'll be right back," and went back toward the kitchen.

Steve glanced in his direction then shrugged and set the cookies down next to the plate of bagels. Olivia still had half her cookie in her grasp, and she shoved it at Steve's mouth like she was urging him to eat it. He made a face at the soggy mess that hit his lips, and he pulled his head back a little and said, "No, why don't you eat that?"

"What?" Tony asked as he came back into the living room, the container of half-and-half in one hand and a sugar bowl in the other.

Steve couldn't help the grimace that covered his face. "I think she wants to share her cookie with me."

"Yeah," Tony said and set the items down on the table. "She's thoughtful like that." He moved over to Steve and said to the little girl in his arms, "What'cha got there, baby girl? You got a cookie? You wanna share your cookie with Daddy?" Tony stopped cold and blinked. "In a different context, that's absolutely filthy, and I should be completely ashamed to even put any thought like that in context with my child."

Steve shot him a questioning look, but Tony waved him off and kept his attention on the little girl. He asked her again if she wanted to share her treat with Steve, and when she nodded, Tony cocked his head at him and said, "You don't want to disappoint her, do you?"

"But she had it in her mouth."

"So?"

Steve just gawked at him, and Tony laughed.

"Yep, you're definitely not a father yet." He turned his attention to Olivia. "Daddy's not hungry right now. How 'bout you let Papa have it?"

He tried to take a bite of the cookie in her hands, but she made a noise of protest and pulled her hands away from him. Tony's mouth twitched before he glanced up at Steve.

"Nope, she wants her Daddy to have it."

And, as though to prove Tony's words, she held the cookie back out to Steve. Steve made a face, and he looked between Olivia, the soppy cookie in her hand, Tony, the cookie, Olivia, and back to Tony again.

"Really?" was all he could say.

"It's really not that bad," Tony replied. "You get used to it."

Feeling trapped, Steve sighed, closed his eyes, and bit off the smallest portion of the cookie that he could be bothered with.

It was soggy, and he tried not to think about why that was, and through his displeasure, he heard Tony say, "Smile, Steve. She's watching you. Don't hurt her feelings."

"Mmm…" he said and forced his lips into something like a smile. "Thank you, doll baby."

When he opened his eyes, Olivia had the cookie back in her mouth, and Tony was giving him a funny, contemplative look. "What?" he asked, not understanding what he'd done wrong.

"Nothing," Tony said with a quick shake of his head. "All right!" He clapped his hands together. "What do you say we start opening some presents?"

So, Tony sat on the couch while Steve, at Tony's urging, plopped down on the floor and let Olivia have at the enormous pile of beautifully-wrapped gifts. As Olivia, with Steve's help, ripped at the paper on the first gift, Tony went about slicing and slathering bagels, and he handed one half over to Steve, who smiled and mouthed a quiet, "Thanks," to him then turned his attention back to the toddler, who was now busy trying to yank off the ribbons of a box larger than herself. She lost her balance and went tumbling back onto Steve's legs, and Steve held his breath a moment, fearing she would start screaming, but she just giggled and rolled off of him and got back to her feet before going right back over to the present.

"Determined, isn't she?" Steve mused and took a bite of his bagel. Tony just hummed his agreement.

"It's in the blood," Tony said, but he was smiling at Steve as he said it. He then made a 'hmm' sound and grabbed another small, black, rectangular thing and pointed it at the sideboard on the far wall. Music started streaming from somewhere in the vicinity — more of those supposed Christmas songs — and Tony said, "Too quiet. Besides, last day we can listen to this crap, anyway. Wait, wasn't I supposed to be recording this?" He thought about this a moment then shrugged. "Oh, well. Maybe next year."

He set the black thing down rather casual-like, and Steve raised an eyebrow and said, "I don't think you hate this stuff as much as you pretend to."

Tony just hummed again but said nothing, a coy little twist to his lips, and he reached down and grabbed his bagel and took a bite of it. "Want your coffee?" he asked through a mouthful of food.

"Yeah, sure," he said and went to tell Tony how he took it, but Tony just went about fixing up one of the mugs with the creamer and sugar, and without a word, he handed the finished mug over and took another bite of his bagel.

Steve frowned down at the mug, but he took a sip and found to his surprise that it was pretty much perfect. He looked up to Tony to ask how he knew, but Tony just raised an eyebrow and said, "Really?"

"But I don't understand how—"

"'cause we're soul mates."

Olivia fell back against him again after losing her balance trying to pull on another box that was bigger than she was. Mug in hand, he stuck the bagel in his mouth and helped her get back up, and she toddled right on back to the presents and began tearing and ripping again.

"Soul mates?" he mused, and Tony said, "Some people out there think we are."

"They're probably just being nice," he said with an easy shrug.

Tony just 'hmm'ed at that but said nothing, and instead, he picked up a small piece of what looked like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and said, "Livvy, baby, come here and eat something halfway decent."

Olivia looked up from where she sat literally under the tree pulling at ribbons, and when her gaze set on the small bite of food Tony was offering her, she clambered out from underneath and toddled on over. Steve watched, slightly bemused, as she went over to the table and, instead of taking the piece of sandwich, picked up Tony's bagel and tried to take a bite.

"Baby, I think that's a little tough for you to chew yet," he said as she bit down but then made a face and dropped the bagel back onto the table. She looked up at Tony like the bagel had personally offended her, but Tony just held out the small bite of sandwich and said, "Or you don't like cream cheese. Here, you like peanut butter and jelly, though."

She took the bite and stuffed it in her mouth, and she chewed that then swallowed and opened her mouth for another. Steve sipped at his coffee as he watched Tony feed Olivia about half a sandwich before she got bored and toddled on back to the tree.

"I tried," Tony said with a shrug and dropped the sandwich back down onto the plate. "Did she actually get anything opened yet, or has she just been ripping the ribbons to shreds?"

"Mostly the ribbons," Steve said as he scanned over the mess beside him. "Who's all this stuff from, anyway?"

"Santa," Tony said and took another bite of his bagel, completely unbothered by the remnants of Olivia's slobber on it.

"You mean us?"

Tony gave him a flat look. "No. I mean _Santa_. Also the other Avengers, but I'm pretty sure most of that junk came from Santa."

Steve snatched up a package that hadn't been touched yet, and he looked at the tag attached to it. He shot a look at Tony and said, "Santa's handwriting looks awful familiar to me."

Tony shrugged and picked up his mug. "Santa's the one that spent a year in art school but didn't even think about trying to disguise his handwriting." And then, he changed his voice a bit, almost like he was mocking someone. "_Well, I never took calligraphy! I don't know how to do that!_"

"Well, I didn't!" he said with a laugh then added, "Besides, she can't read yet. Can she?"

Tony just stared at him. "That is the exact argument you gave me last night when I teased you about that. And no, she can't. Not unless she's hiding it from us."

He nodded his understanding, and he took another bite of his bagel and looked over the mess of paper and presents. "What a waste," he muttered around a mouthful of food.

"_Waste?_"

Steve motioned at the piles of paper. "The wrapping paper! That stuff costs a fortune—"

Tony groaned and rolled his eyes. "Don't start that again with me."

"She's too young to appreciate it anyway."

"Honey, as you can see, kids love tearing things to shit."

"But it's a waste of money."

"Do you know how much money we have in our accounts right now?"

"That's not the point."

"That _is _the point. We can afford it. It's not a frivolous expense for us."

"You wanted to wrap it in something, wrap it in newspaper."

"Jesus Christ. _Old, _Steve!" Tony said and fell back against the couch, laughing. "You're old!"

"It doesn't change the fact that, if you wanted to wrap these gifts, it's much more economical to wrap it in newspaper."

Tony sobered and sat back up. "I suddenly don't know if that's you being old or you taking pointers from our resident wannabe hippy."

Steve could do nothing but blink at him, completely confused by the last bit of his sentence, and Tony, evidently sensing he'd again gone over Steve's head, just waved off his concern.

"Don't worry about it— What does she have in her mouth?"

Steve turned to see Olivia sitting beneath the tree again, a small half-wrapped package in her hand, the corner of which was stuck in her mouth as she chewed on it. Steve sighed and set his mug on the coffee table then stuck the remains of his bagel in his mouth and reached out to pull the small box away from her.

"I don't think that's how you're supposed to open that," he said through a mouthful of food and then helped her pull the rest of the paper off to reveal a toy telephone that looked like it was made by something called Fisher-Price. It had red wheels and eyes and a smile and a yellow rotary dial, and from behind him, he heard Tony mutter, "You and that stupid phone."

"What?" Steve asked with a laugh. "It's kind of cute. I mean, it doesn't look like that block you have—"

"It doesn't look like anything _anyone _has. They don't make 'em like that anymore, babe. Hell, _I _barely remember rotary dials."

"Papa's no fun," Steve told Olivia and began to open the box for her. She stood beside him and tried to help, and he pulled the small toy from the box and set it down for her to test out. Olivia plopped down and began to play with it, picking up the receiver and tugging on the dial and chirping with delight when it made noise, and Steve frowned and looked at the small, red lead attached to the front of it.

"Oh!" he said, "And you can tug it around, too."

"Stop trying to make it sound cooler than it is!"

But Steve ignored him and said, "Here, doll baby, watch," and began to pull on the phone to tug it around. Olivia watched for all of three seconds before she decided she had to tug it around, too, but either her coordination needed help or she didn't know her own strength, as she tugged it too hard and sent it flipping upside down.

Though she just continued to tug it around that way, anyway.

"That," Tony said, pride shining in his voice, "is our future Rhodes Scholar right there."


	3. Chapter 3

* * *

~*_Still _Evidently Upstate New York, December 2015*~

Steve didn't think it was possible to have such a mess.

He was sitting on the floor, mounds of toys and clothing and knickknacks and wrapping paper surrounding him, Olivia squealing as she rolled around in a pile of already-torn paper. The toys had mostly been from 'Santa'; pretty little dresses in soft colors had come from people called 'Pepper and Happy'; soft little onesies (as Tony had called them) had come from 'Uncle James and Aunt Tasha'; something that looked like a child's first chemistry set had come from 'Uncle Bruce' (_"A little young, Brucie-boy, don't you think?"_); a plush little bulked-up Frankenstein-like monster from someone (some_thing_?) called 'Hulk'; storybooks from 'Uncle Rhodey'; some weird robot thing called a 'BB-8' as well as a guide to dealing with overprotective parents from 'Uncle Sam'; a set of crystal figurines from 'Wanda and Vision'; coloring books and crayons from 'Thor' ("_I __did _not _expect Thunderbolt to get something so…normal. Wait, is she old enough for these yet?_"). He hadn't noticed anything for himself or Tony from any of these people — well, except for 'Your Best Pal, Clint,' from whom, as it turned out, they'd received membership in a 'jelly of the month' club.

"_Joke's on him,_" Tony had said upon reading the missive. "_Because we are going to enjoy the hell out of those jellies, and every month, I'm going to write him a ten-thousand-word email telling him just how much we enjoyed them, and it'll lock his phone up until he answers a series of increasingly-difficult questions based on that email_."

"_Tony_," Steve had said purely on instinct, the tone slightly chiding. Very little of what Tony had said had made sense.

"_No, no, he doesn't get to do this kind of shit and not have consequences. This isn't the farm team; it's the big leagues, and if he wants to play with the big boys, he's gotta be able to get as good as he gives._"

For some reason, Steve got the feeling he was more babysitter to this group of nuts than anything else.

Now Tony was grumbling about the gift Olivia had gotten from the one he kept calling 'Barton,' calling him names and threatening to make him sleep in the vents and lamenting that someone called 'Laura' should have known better.

Steve took one last look at Olivia to make sure she didn't hurt herself, and satisfied at the happy babbling he heard from somewhere inside the pile, he turned back to Tony.

"You know, I really don't think it's so bad."

"No!" Tony said. "No, it is. It's goddamned awful. Hawkeye collectibles? Really? First of all, she's too damned young. She'd choke on the pieces. Second, it's not my fault he bought up a couple pallets of the damned things and now he can't even give them away. Iron Man flies off the shelves for a reason."

The entire time, Tony was typing furiously onto his phone, and Steve — if he was understanding this 'texting' thing correctly; Tony had explained it as sort of a personal telegraph — had a feeling he was sending a message to this 'Barton' about the present he'd got for their daughter.

"Ask your kids," Tony muttered as he typed. "They'll tell you."

"_Tony_," Steve said in that warning but good-natured tone he knew was appropriate for the situation.

"You can't argue with facts, babe. Hawkeye is not nearly as cool as Iron Man. Never was; never will be."

Steve wrestled Olivia away from the pile and pulled her onto his lap. She went happily, a bow in her hand that she was trying to dismantle as she did so. "That's still not nice to point out," he said as he smoothed back her wisps of blonde hair. It reminded him of the color his had been when he was younger. It had gradually darkened to dishwater blonde as he'd gotten older.

"I'm sorry, you saw the picture of that wall, right? The one with all the arrows stuck in it? He's lucky I don't toss him off the roof and see if bird-brain can actually fly."

Steve just shook his head. He reached out and began to push that 'corn popper' toy, as it was called while Tony, done with his phone, looked over what appeared to be a comic book of some kind and muttered, "And who the hell wants to read Avenger adventures featuring Hawkeye? He sits in the corner, shoots arrows at you, and makes asshole comments like he thinks he's the funniest fuck in the world. No one wants to read about him."

Somehow, Steve knew not to encourage Tony's utterances, but it was hard not to at least crack a smile at the annoyance. Some of it was genuine, he was sure, but he was also certain that a lot of it was for show. Whether it was a general appearance Tony was accustomed to putting on for everyone or it was a special performance just for him, he couldn't say. The only thing he could say for absolute certain was that Tony was just…something else, something wonderful, something he never wanted to give up.

For only the briefest moment, he again felt guilty for the fact that he was enjoying himself so when Bucky was… And what about the other Commandos, now that he thought about it? Did they see the end of the war, too? Did they get to go home? Did they get to live their dreams as Steve seemed to?

And why had it taken so long for Steve to live his dream? Surely, he didn't wait seventy years. What about Peggy? Didn't he marry her after the war?

He tightened his hold on Olivia just the slightest and said, "Hey, Tony?"

"Huh?" he asked, still paging through the comic book. "Oh, you make an appearance in this. Huh. They got your number, all right. Captain Buzzkill right here. Also seem to have gotten your shoulder-to-waist ratio down pat."

Steve ignored the tease and instead said, "Do I have another family?"

Tony looked up from the book. He frowned a little and then closed up the comic and set it aside. "Well, if you want to count the other Avengers as your family—"

"Not like that. I mean like this. Like us." He motioned amongst the three of them, Olivia now back to playing with the toy telephone, banging the receiver against the base. "Didn't I get married after the war?"

Tony narrowed his eyes some, as though he was weighing how to answer the question. Finally, he nodded just a smidge and said a somewhat enigmatic, "Yes."

"Did something happen?" he asked, not liking the tone of Tony's reply. "Don't I speak to them? I mean, my kids would be older than you, wouldn't they? Did I have kids?"

"Are you sure you want to know that?"

He nodded. "Yeah. No offense, but I'm not really sure why I'm here with you in 2015 instead of them. Shouldn't I be with them?"

Tony took a deep breath, and he exhaled it after a moment of quiet deliberation and said, "Look, Steve, we really shouldn't chance messing with the time-space continuum too much. I know I've already spoiled a whole bunch of shit for you — and clearly you're a better actor than I ever gave you credit for because I never once suspected you knew about any of this — and while there's some things that I don't think are going to cause a problem if you know them, there's other things that I just _can't _tell you. Not yet. Not if you want to be here with me in 2015. And I'm a selfish son-of-a-bitch. I don't like people touching my stuff. I'm not going to do anything that keeps _me _from getting this, either."

He must have sensed that his words had made Steve a bit ill-at-ease, because his expression softened, and he even smiled some as he spoke his next words.

"Steve, trust me, Livvy and I are your family. We're your only _legal _family, even if the other Avengers are kind of like family, too. I can't tell you how or why that's the case, but don't worry. You're not neglecting anyone. No one would ever use the term 'deadbeat dad' to describe Captain America."

He went to ask what a 'deadbeat dad' was, but Tony continued on.

"Yes, you got married after the war. That's all I can say about it. You just have to trust me on that. Anything more, and we get into 'City on the Edge of Forever' territory. We need to stick with Doc Brown 'What the hell?' at the end of _Back to the Future _territory."

Steve just blinked at him. Mesmerizing but confusing as all get-out.

"Just trust me on it," Tony said with a sigh.

"What about Peggy? I mean, I don't mean to pry—"

"Yes, you do. You don't say anything unless you mean to say it. I can't tell you, Steve. And now you're doing that thing with your jaw where you're tensing it up because someone's telling you something you don't want to hear and you're thinking hard about what you're going to do next to try to convince me to tell you."

Steve just looked at him but didn't say anything. Was he telegraphing his moves that badly, or did Tony just know him that well?

Tony sighed again, and he moved to sit on the floor beside Steve, torn wrapping paper crinkling beneath him.

"Look, I get that it's confusing," he said and wrapped loose arms around Steve's shoulders, "and I get that it's frustrating that I'm being kind of elusive with some of my answers." He rested his chin atop Steve's shoulder and continued talking, his breath warm and his odd facial hair scratching at Steve's neck. "And trust me, if I could tell you everything and not have it change anything, I would. We got a glimpse at a world where we didn't tell each other things, and trust me, it sucked. It was _bad_, and I never, ever want us to get anywhere close to that point, and I promise you we won't. But whereas there's a lot I _can _tell you, there's a lot I _can't _tell you, not if I don't want to fuck things up for both of us, and being that I think we're both pretty fucking happy with where things are with us right now, I really don't want to fuck things up for us, and my Steve would kill both of us if we allowed that to happen.

"So, I can't really tell you what happened in that gap between when you fell asleep and now, but I can tell you that everything that's happened has been completely, totally, one hundred percent worth it — for both of us. A lot of really shitty things happened to us, but if changing any of those shitty things meant that we wouldn't be sitting here at this moment opening presents on Christmas morning, then I wouldn't change one second of the past for either one of us."

He'd already stopped believing this was some nefarious Hydra plot, but if he hadn't, he was pretty sure that would have done the trick. He didn't know this Tony from Adam — not really — and yet he could tell that Tony meant everything he'd said with every fiber of his being. Like he knew his name, rank, and serial number, he knew that Tony, well, _loved _him and wanted to be with him and had very happily created a life together with him. He knew Tony was right. Somehow, he knew it — whatever _it _really was — was worth it.

"How did I get this lucky?" he murmured more to himself than to Tony.

"You and me both, babe," Tony replied and turned to press a gentle kiss against his cheek, the scratch of facial hair oddly titillating. "Twelve months of different-flavored jellies, courtesy of our 'best pal'? I think we're the luckiest sons-of-bitches in the world."

Steve laughed despite himself. "Well, that alone is worth a seventy-year wait."

"Trust me, Barton's torment will definitely be. I may end up with an arrow in the ass for it, but it'll be worth it."

"I'll knock him into next Tuesday if he does that."

Tony hummed a bit, intrigue and lust sounding like they were mixed in together. "I like it when you get all possessive and protective. It's quite the turn-on."

Steve didn't know what a 'turn-on' was, but judging from the way Tony tightened his hold and nuzzled into Steve's neck, he took it as a good thing.

"I don't think you should be doing that when I'm holding our daughter on my lap. Well, _your _daughter."

Tony sat back but didn't pull his arms from Steve's shoulders. "What do you mean _my _daughter?"

Steve motioned to the little girl in his arms that was pretending to talk into the earpiece of the little red receiver of her telephone. "Well, I mean, she looks like you. Well, a blonde you. Did you have blonde hair as a kid?"

"Nope. Always this color. Er, without the grays. I mean, she's definitely your daughter, too, I just don't know how I, uh…"

Tony sighed yet again, but there was a hint of a smile on his face, and he sat back further, pulling his arms away from Steve so he could more fully look at him in the face.

"Steve, she's _our _daughter. Trust me. Does she look like me? Yes, but she's _our _daughter. Also, three words— I. Hate. Magic. Hate it. Despise it. Want it wiped from existence in all the nine realms. That would wipe a good eight of those from existence, and fucking good for them. There's one exception to that, but again, I can't tell you what that is mostly because, yeah, you're not ready for that." He laughed and shook his head some. "You're so not ready for that."

"That's the second time you've said that," Steve said, eyebrow quirked and lips twisted in equal parts annoyance and amusement.

"Because it's the truth. You are _definitely _not ready for that."

"Not even a hint?"

"Not even a hint." He was smiling as he said it, and he reached out and brushed his hand over Olivia's head, smoothing down the wispy blonde strands. "But trust me. She's _our _daughter." He motioned to Steve. "Daddy." He motioned to himself. "Papa."

"What about her mother? Is she… Is she not around?"

Tony moved his hand up to smooth back Steve's short, sort-of spiked hair. "So not ready," he said and kissed his temple.

Steve wasn't sure he wanted to know what that meant, so he brushed it aside and nodded at the mess. "How 'bout we finish this up and… I don't know. What's on the agenda for the rest of today?"

Tony was still stroking Steve's hair, looking at him almost reverently, when he said, "Hmm?" and then, "Oh, right. Uh…nothing except sitting around in our Captain America and Iron Man pajamas, watching sappy movies, and then going for Chinese. It's been our tradition since our first — well, no, _second _Christmas together. The less said about the first, the better."

"Why?"

"Trust me. That was… That was rough. Anyway—" He grabbed Olivia off Steve's lap and settled her onto his own. "All right, baby girl. What say you go take another nap while Daddy and I clean up this ridiculous mess you made?"

She grumbled a little and tried to fight it, but Tony just stood up and scooped her up into his arms. "Yeah, no, I don't think so, Young Miss. You're getting cranky again, and I'm not taking you to Spring Palace if you're going to be cranky like that, and Daddy will be all sorts of cranky himself if he doesn't get his traditional Christmas General Tso's."

Steve just blinked and thought about asking Tony what that was, but Tony was gone into the foyer by that point and making headway up the stairs, so Steve just pushed himself to his feet and gazed around at the clutter of paper and toys.

It was a ridiculously extravagant affair, and the part of him that still remembered cold nights spent with an empty stomach was almost embarrassed by it. Yes, it was nice that Tony apparently had money, but it was also a little disconcerting.

For a brief moment, he wondered if he was some perverse form of a kept man.

He snagged a cookie from the container on the coffee table and crunched on it then reached down and began to ball up piles of torn paper and ribbons. He wasn't joking when he said this whole thing was a waste. Christmas wrapping paper was expensive. His mother had never wrapped any of his presents in anything but old newspapers. Tony must not have made his fortune himself if he was keen to just throw his money around like that. Probably came from a father or a grandfather — which was odd because Steve couldn't imagine an 'old money' type like that being, well, openly homosexual. Weren't they expected to marry into another wealthy family and produce the next generation of heirs?

Just another one of those things he couldn't figure out about this odd time he'd found himself in.

Without Tony or Olivia there to distract him, it now meant he was better able to listen to the Christmas music playing in the background — well, if he could even call it 'music.' He'd maybe recognized a handful of the songs he'd heard since the car this morning, and even then, it was only because the lyrics rang a bell to him and not the tunes themselves.

He didn't see anything to put the balled-up papers in, so he gathered them into as compact a pile as he could, and it was as he was moving Olivia's scattered toys into a neat and orderly arrangement beneath the tree when the first familiar song of the day began to play.

Or he thought it was familiar.

He knew 'White Christmas' in his sleep. He was sure everyone did. It was everywhere, and two years after its release, still hugely popular. And while he was certain the voice that was singing this…arrangement of it, he guess he'd call it, sounded an awful lot like Bing Crosby, and while it _sounded _kind of similar, there was something off about it.

He frowned, a dancing robot in his hand, and took several cautious steps over to the radio or whatever it was that the sound was coming from. He listened to it, noting the phrasing and the way the instruments were timed.

It was wrong.

It wasn't 'White Christmas.'

He'd heard that damned song enough times to know. This was _not _the 'White Christmas' he'd heard since the day that lousy record was released. Maybe it was a live radio theatre recording, but it didn't sound like it. The balance was too good for it to be live. It didn't… It wasn't right.

"Oh, you mean there was a time you weren't a complete and total slob?"

Steve turned, and he must have looked like hell because Tony's face immediately contorted in concern, and he said, "Babe? What's wrong? What happened?"

Steve swallowed and motioned to the radio…thing. "That's not 'White Christmas.' That's not the 'White Christmas' I know."

Tony winced back. "What are you talking about? That's 'White Christmas.'"

Steve just shook his head and clutched a little tighter to the robot in his hands. "That's not the version I know. That damned song is everywhere. I hear it in my sleep. That's not the version I know."

"That's the version everyone knows. Are you sure?" Tony stepped a little further into the room and frowned at Steve.

But he just nodded and said, "Positive."

Tony continued to frown and considered him a moment then said, "Oh! Yeah, they rerecorded it after the war. Guess they pressed it so many times they wore out the master. That's this version."

"Convenient," Steve muttered with a raised eyebrow and Tony scoffed.

"What? You think I'm trying to pull a fast-one on you over 'White Christmas'? It's the truth."

But Steve just stared at Tony, warily, and the specter of this all being a Hydra plot resurfaced once again in his mind. Had he been stupidly lulled in to a false sense of security? Had he been so desperate to believe this was all on the level — that Tony was on the level — that he'd willingly turned a blind eye to what were glaring inconsistencies?

Tony seemed to understand that he was losing Steve's trust again, and so he sighed, snatched up his phone, and grumbled as he swiped his thumbs over it. After a moment, he reached over, switched something on the radio, and then the version of 'White Christmas' he knew was streaming from the speakers.

"Happy?" Tony asked, and Steve exhaled a breath of relief. "Yeah. Thanks."

"Don't mention it," Tony said and continued to let the song play. "Last thing I need you wondering is if you fell into an alternate universe."

Steve's eyes went wide at that thought. He hadn't even considered that. "Can that happen?"

Tony shrugged. "Actually stumbling into an alternate universe? Hasn't so far. Getting a glimpse of an alternate universe, though?" He scratched at his jaw. "Yeah, we might have some experience with that."

Steve exhaled a breath and went to clutch the robot a little tighter when he realized he was about to crush it. He set it down, hoping he hadn't damaged it too much, and muttered a quiet, "Jesus."

"It's a crazy life we've gotten ourselves into," Tony said with a grin, "but fuck it, if it isn't worth it."

~*~

They watched a couple movies while Olivia napped, the one that had been on when he'd first come downstairs that morning about a kid that desperately wanted a BB gun (and he was inclined to agree that the dumb kid would just shoot his eye out with it) as well as a more recent one about a giant, overgrown elf that included a character that, according to Tony, looked exactly like Happy, whoever that was. He liked the one with the kid more, if only because it was clearly trying to ape the time that he himself came from, though there were certain details about it that were a little off, and Tony seemed to get a gigantic kick out of that every time he pointed it out.

"Every year," Tony just said and leaned over to peck a kiss against Steve's cheek.

Steve had thought he'd cleaned up the place well enough, but Tony had methodically gone through and picked up every scrap of paper then arranged the gifts under the tree in the least cluttered way possible. When Steve had told him to leave it — who was Tony trying to impress? — Tony just said, "Yeah, well, not all of us enjoy living in our own filth. And I thought you hail from that generation that's all about pride and keeping up appearances?"

"Are we expecting company?" Steve had asked.

"No."

Steve just shrugged and waved off his concern. "Then why bother? Worry about making a good impression when there's someone here to be impressed."

Steve thought he heard Tony grumble something about 'living with Oscar fucking Madison,' but he ignored it and instead helped himself to more cookies.

Once the films were done, Tony said it was time for dinner, and so they went upstairs to get showered and changed. Steve dressed in a pair of black trousers and a dark blue dress shirt while Tony went for a dark gray suit with a red tie, and Steve would be lying to himself if he didn't admit some very tawdry thoughts came to mind regarding Tony and that tie. Steve pulled a lighter gray sweater over his head and combed his hair while Tony laced up a pair of shoes, and when Tony brushed past him to grab a comb off the dresser, he realized that, well—

"Did I just lose a few inches or did you gain a few?"

He looked Tony up and down, brow knitted in confusion, and Tony said a husky, "Why, Captain. How forward of you."

Steve frowned until he realized Tony had taken that as some awful innuendo, and he rolled his eyes and said, "No, your height. You, uh…"

He motioned over Tony like it explained the whole thing, and Tony went a little petulant at that, pursing his lips and folding his arms. "They're called 'lifts,' all right? A lot of guys use them."

Steve tried oh-so-hard not to smile, but it was hard, especially as he choked on a laugh at Tony's haughty attitude toward being caught out, and as Tony huffed and combed his hair, Steve gave him another glance-over and said, "There's a point where they stop being 'lifts' and start being 'heels.'"

Tony slapped the comb down on the dresser and turned to glare at Steve, but there was no heat behind the glare. The twist to his lips and the glimmer in his brown eyes said he was more amused by it than annoyed.

"You know? 1944 Steve is as much of an ass as his 2015 counterpart. I don't know why I thought you would be less-so, but you're as big a jerk as he is."

Steve could do nothing but grin at him. "I know you don't mean that."

"Yeah? That the number you want to place all your chips on?"

He leaned in some and, almost on instinct, put a hand to Tony's hip. "Yeah," he said, his mouth by Tony's ear, and Steve heard his rather audible gasp of breath, "it is."

"Fuck, I hate you," Tony breathed, but Steve could feel the tension emanating from him, and not the 'bad' kind of tension— well, it was 'bad' in the sense that it was liable to get a fella thrown out of the service for it.

"And I _know _you don't meant that," he murmured, brushing his fingers from one hip to the other. Before Tony could say or do anything, he broke away and gave Tony the sweetest, most innocent smile he could muster.

Tony could only stare like his brain had short-circuited.

After Tony had gotten a hold of himself, they went into Olivia's room, and Steve stood around and offered his comments as Tony dressed Olivia in a cute little red, green, and white Christmas dress. There was some mention of 'gender roles' and 'conformity' and 'not wanting to encourage it' by Tony, to which Steve just nodded his head and pretended like he knew what any of those words meant, until Tony admitted, "But she looks so _cute _in it! Look at her, Steve, and tell me this isn't the cutest kid you've ever seen!"

Also, evidently _he _— or, more accurately, his future-self — had been the one to pick out the dress.

But he made some sly comments about asking Tony if he 'needed help' with the squirming toddler and did Tony 'even know what he was doing,' which, after the 'heels' comment, did not impress Tony, who just motioned to the child and said, "You think _you _can do better?" Olivia, cute though she may have been, wasn't exactly fighting it, but she wasn't making it easy for him, either, struggling to get to her toys the entire time, and Tony finally grumbled out, "_Work _with me, kid!" as he tried to get her little black patent leather Mary Janes on her feet. "_Your _child," he muttered and shot a pointed look at Steve.

Steve just put his hands up and said, "Clearly, you're her actual biological father. Not me." Tony just stared at him a moment but didn't say anything.

Once Tony was able to finish getting her dressed (and then the coat and the mittens — she was a tough cookie, that was for sure), they piled into the already-warmed up car — "Remote starter," Tony had explained, whatever that was — and began the drive to the restaurant. Whichever radio station Tony had tuned in was still playing Christmas songs — again, he supposed he'd call it 'music' — and as they drove down the darkened road illuminated by sort of amber-colored streetlamps (and didn't those look…kind of odd), Steve noted the preponderance of bright and colorful lights strung on trees and around the porches and eaves of houses along the way. Only one house had anything remotely like the (expensive) Christmas lights he was accustomed to — those large, soft-colored bulbs. Most of them looked like they must have been those LED lights Tony had talked about or perhaps those tiny incandescents he'd also mentioned. Set against the snow, it made for a pretty and festive picture, and Steve again tamped down that horrible guilty feeling that said he should not be in any way enjoying himself. He should be back at the front. He should be fighting. He should be mourning the ones that were lost. He should not be sitting in a warm, state-of-the-art car and dressed in clothes that quite clearly cost more than he'd ever made in his entire life, anticipating a dinner of Chinese food with a fella that was practically his deepest, darkest fantasy come to life and a little girl this dark fantasy claimed was their child.

So, he forced himself to ignore those thoughts and instead closed his eyes and listened to some noisy, jangly thing that must have been called 'Step into Christmas' and enjoyed the feel of warmth and security.

"Olivia, what did I tell you about kicking the seat when Papa's driving? Stop it."

Steve opened his eyes and glanced back and, in the passing streaks of light, watched as Olivia grumbled and pushed her feet against the back of the seat.

"That, too, kiddo," Tony said, and Steve reached out and gently moved her feet so that her legs were hanging from her seat. "Thanks," Tony told him, but Steve just shrugged and mumbled that it was nothing then asked, "Can she have Chinese food?"

"The chicken and broccoli they have there is usually pretty bland," Tony said. "That should work for her. Last year, she was still on formula, so we didn't have to worry about it."

Steve just nodded his understanding then said, "Never had Chinese for Christmas dinner before." Tony hummed in thought and said, "Well, you're not Jewish."

Steve just blinked, not really getting the meaning or joke, if it was one. "Are you?"

"On my old man's side, sure. But that's not why we do it. We're New Yorkers too lazy to cook our own damned meal. That's why."

"Ma used to cook a turkey. Or sometimes a small chicken, if that's all she could afford." He swallowed the heavy lump of emotion that clogged his throat at his next thought. "Buck's parents invited me over to their place after she died." He frowned and murmured, "Guess I'll never be received there ever again."

Tony stayed suspiciously quiet at that, and Steve leaned his head back against the seat and turned to watch his profile — the slope of his nose, the cut of his jaw, the neatly-groomed hairs of his chin, those feathery, black eyelashes. Tony was a handsome man; there were no two ways about it. He was intelligent and strong and funny and easy to rile up as well, but he was still a good- looking man, and it still seemed so…odd that he could luck into a time and place where admitting this or accepting this was OK, wasn't going to get him into trouble, wasn't going to get him thrown out of the service or beat up or worse. He could be with a man, they could have a family together, and no one would blink an eyelash at it.

He wasn't sure whether this was a dream or reality, but he said a silent prayer for it to be real, and he said another prayer that he might have just a little more time here to figure things out. Not just a day (if that's what this was) but…but just a little longer. He hadn't learned everything he was supposed to learn, he didn't think, and he wasn't ready to let it go. Not just yet.

Soon, the open spaces of the outskirts gave way to the congestion of a downtown, lights and traffic and decorations as far as he could see. Tony swung the car around a few blocks then pulled into a parking space at an angle, the curb and a parking meter directly ahead of it. He whistled a bit as he shut the car off and popped his door open, and Steve followed suit — almost strangling himself with that seat belt-thing in the process — and watched as Tony ducked into the backseat to grab the baby and then something he'd previously called a 'diaper bag.'

He shut his door and walked around the back of the car to meet up with Tony and said, "Need some help?"

"Here," Tony said and held Olivia out to him. Steve scooped her into his arms and held her against his chest, and he waited for Tony to situate himself with the bag and shut the car door before he followed him onto the sidewalk. The shoes he wore weren't exactly made for the snow that hadn't quite been cleared away, but he was able to gain enough traction not to slide around. How Tony was doing it with his 'lifts' was anyone's guess.

"Have we been here before?" he asked as he followed Tony down the sidewalk. He saw a lighted awning up ahead that looked like it had the name 'Spring Palace' printed on it, so he figured that was the storefront they were heading toward.

"Yeah, a couple times. Pretty good. Can't complain. Nothing beats the city. Pizza, though?" He scoffed. "Don't even think of trying to get a decent slice in this town."

Tony stopped just outside the building, and he held the door open for Steve and ushered him in. Steve stepped in, surprised by how…not exotic it looked (he'd only ever been inside one Chinese restaurant in his life, and they had definitely played up the exotic aspect of it). There was a cash register just inside the vestibule, and a man in a leather jacket was standing there watching and waiting as the cashier rang up what was evidently in the several cardboard boxes sitting on the chairs to his right.

"Jesus," Tony said as he stepped into the building, a small, tinkling bell ringing as the door swung closed behind him, "who the hell's minding the store if you're here on a food run?"

Steve frowned as he realized Tony was not just talking to this man but evidently knew him, and the man turned and grinned, his expression equal parts surprise and amusement as he leaned against the counter.

"Well, if it isn't _People _Magazine's Cutest Avenger Couple."

Tony rolled his eyes and grumbled, "You have a kid, and suddenly you're 'cute' instead of 'sexy.'"

"Hey, you have to admit the Sexiest Avenger Couple has that exotic Russian-spy thing going for them. You two've got the whole dad-thing going on. I mean, isn't that a diaper bag on your shoulder?" He motioned to Tony's right side.

"Point?"

The man laughed. "Nothing, I'm just messing with you." He grinned and took Olivia's mitten-covered little hand between his thumb and index finger. "Hey, there, cutie! Don't you look adorable?"

Olivia giggled but seemingly went bashful and turned away to press her face into Steve's shoulder but still peeked an eye out to make sure she didn't miss any of what was going on.

"Merry Christmas, you spoiled, little monster," the man said and leaned in to kiss her cheek, and she giggled again. "Got these two wrapped around your tiny, little finger— Yeah, don't get all coy with me, I'm onto you. I know your game."

Olivia just pressed her face into Steve's shoulder again, and the man turned his attention to Tony and said, "Hey, Merry Christmas, man," and put his hand out for a shake, but Tony slapped it away and pulled him in for a hug.

"Family, Wilson," Tony said. "Families don't shake hands. They hug."

The man — Wilson — laughed and clapped a hand against his back and said, "Some crazy-ass family," then pulled away and turned to Steve. He pulled him in for a one-armed hug — presumably because Steve had Olivia in his arms, so it was hard to do the full-hug as he had with Tony — and Steve made some unsure utterance and put a hesitant arm around him, and Wilson frowned at him a moment and looked at Tony.

"What's his problem?" he asked as he dropped his arm and jerked his head at Steve.

"Oh!" Tony said, suddenly going animated. "Remember a while back Steve talked about having some dream where he spent a day in the future?"

"Yeah."

Tony thinned his lips into a flat line. "Turns out it wasn't a dream. Guess what day it is."

Wilson's eyes went wide. "No shit," he murmured then looked between Tony and Steve. "Damn, so he's—"

"Not himself," Tony finished. "Doesn't know me, doesn't know you, doesn't know anything about what's going on here."

To Steve's surprise and continued confusion, Wilson just laughed. "Man, the universe just loves to fuck with you two, doesn't it. Hey!" he added and shot Tony a knowing look. "Nothing else _weird _happened, did it?"

"Weird?" Tony asked.

"Yeah, you know, _weird_. Like, you're dealing with whatever shit Hydra's pulling downtown one minute, and then the next thing you know, you're turned into a w—"

"Yep! We remember!" Tony said quickly, and Steve frowned and looked between Tony and Wilson.

Wilson just laughed some more and shook his head before he turned to Steve. "Shit, I am so bummed I can't stick around to see how this plays out, but you know how that crew gets when they're hungry— Actually, no, you don't yet, do you?"

Steve opened his mouth to say no, he didn't, but Wilson just continued, "So, where exactly did you get pulled from—Or maybe I should ask _when _exactly did you get pulled from?"

"Christmas '44," Steve replied.

"His pal Barnes just died," Tony told the man, a weird and almost knowing tone to his voice. Wilson nodded his understanding, and Steve narrowed his eyes at the exchange. There was something funny about it — it meant something, but he couldn't figure out what.

"Oh," Wilson said, "then I _definitely _do not need help carrying this stuff out to the car."

Steve nodded and took his words at face-value, but Tony startled and said, "Wait, _what? _How are you stuck carrying boxes while the one with the bionic arm gets to sit in the car and laugh at you?"

"Lost the coin toss," Wilson said with an easy shrug.

"Please don't tell me he's the one that flipped it."

"Nah, Nat—" He stopped short at Tony's pointed look. "Yeah, I don't know which one of you plays favorites more: those two or you two."

Tony scoffed. "Steve and I are bastions of impartiality."

"Nah, I'm going with Barton. You're spoiled as shit. No, you know what? I've changed my mind. It's you two. You know why? 'Cause somehow, the formerly brainwashed Soviet assassins are less codependent on each other than the super soldier and the billionaire."

"We are _not _codependent." Tony smacked Steve's arm. "Tell him, Steve."

Steve twisted a bemused smile at Tony but couldn't find it in him to argue against what Wilson was saying. He didn't have the experience to know whether or not he — or future him — and Tony were 'codependent' on each other, but from what he'd been able to glean, it wasn't an unfair assumption to make. At least, if 'codependent' meant what he figured it meant.

"Anyway," Tony said and looked at the boxes of food, "and why even— Don't you people get paid enough to get yourselves big, fat Christmas gooses?"

"Does anyone in this country eat goose?"

"Figure of speech," Tony said in defense. "You know what I mean."

Wilson heaved up a box and shrugged. "No one wants to be bothered to cook the damned thing," he said, adjusting the box in his arms. "Why do you think I just spent two hundred dollars on this stuff?"

Tony gave him a flat look. "Your own or that stash of petty cash that's only supposed to be for emergencies?"

"Hey, man," Wilson said and adjusted the box again, "we got a bunch of starving Avengers up there. I think that counts as an emergency, don't you?"

Tony just rolled his eyes, and Steve asked, "You sure you don't need help with that?" as Wilson made his way to the door.

"Nope! No, man, I got it. Trust me."

Steve went over and held the door open for him, and he nodded his thanks and disappeared outside. "Who was that?" Steve asked Tony as the door swung closed.

"Sam Wilson," he replied and motioned for Steve to follow him over to the table they were being led to now their conversation with Wilson was over. "The Falcon," he added and sat down at the table and shrugged off his overcoat. Steve followed suit and took the chair opposite him then tried to thread Olivia's legs into the little child chair that had been set up between them. Tony eventually had to help him when Olivia didn't cooperate as well as she could have.

"Seems like a good man," he said and began to dispense with Olivia's outerwear.

"He is," Tony replied and took a sip of water. He nodded his thanks to the host, who nodded back and left them.

"I thought you said the Avengers were in the city?"

"We just opened another facility not that far from here. Some of them are in the city — Bruce, I think, is there at the moment working on one of this pet projects. The others are breaking in the new place. And evidently raiding the petty cash as we speak."

Steve just nodded, and Tony stood up and said, "Come on. I'm starving."

They loaded up plates at the buffet and then sat down to dig in, and though it wasn't the usual kind of Christmas fare Steve was used to, it was good all the same. True to what Tony had said earlier, the General Tso's chicken was pretty damned good, and he ended up with seconds and then thirds of that.

He also watched Tony take the time to help Olivia with her plate, cutting up the small amount of chicken and fruit and vegetables he'd put on it for her, and he couldn't help the smile that stretched over his face as he thought, once again, that Tony appeared to be a very loving father. He figured Tony had had a good example to follow, which was why he seemed to be such a natural. Steve's father had died in the war, and so he didn't really have any sort of experience with a father like that to build off of. The closest thing he had to an example to follow was Mr. Barnes, but that just wasn't the same.

And Mr. Barnes would probably string him up the next time he saw him. He couldn't say he blamed him.

"You're staring again."

Steve blinked and shook his head. "Sorry."

"No, it's fine. I just hope the thoughts running through your head aren't 'How did I get stuck with this mess?'"

Steve just shook his head once more. "No, not at all. I was just thinking you're very good— With her, I mean. You're kind of a natural."

Tony snorted a laugh. "I'm just that good a bullshitter," he replied and wiped off excess sauce and juice from Olivia's chin.

"No— I mean maybe you are, but not about that. You're very… You must have had a good example to follow."

Emotion wiped clean off Tony's face, and he stared at Steve blankly a moment then turned his attention back to Olivia, and Steve felt like he'd stepped on a landmine.

"Not a good topic to discuss?" he asked.

"Not really, no."

"Sorry, it's just—"

Tony glanced up at him. "Let me put it this way: I know what to do with my daughter because I know firsthand what you're _not _supposed to do with a kid. The best parenting example my old man ever gave me was how _not _to be a parent, so I've taken his piss-poor example and run the exact opposite way with it. My father never once told me he loved me, and no matter what that patch-wearing super-sleuth says, the happiest day of his life _was _the day he shipped me off to boarding school. My daughter is never going to wonder for one second if I love her or care about her. She is going to know her father is there for her. Always."

"I'm sorry," Steve said for lack of anything better to say.

Tony shrugged and went back to picking at his own plate. "Not your fault. No big deal. Not something I really want to talk about on Christmas, though, so if we could change the subject…"

Steve nodded his understanding, and he bit into an egg roll and chewed it a moment then said, "Who got turned into what?"

"Huh?"

Steve swallowed the bite of food. "What Falcon— Wilson— Sam was saying before. Something about fighting Hydra and getting turned into something? Who got turned into what? Does Hydra even have the power to do that? I know they have some crazy powerful weapons—"

"Hydra wasn't the one that did it," Tony said. "It was… It's a long story."

"Was it me? I mean, was I the one that got turned into something?"

Tony just glared at him and shoved a bite of sesame chicken into his mouth, and Steve couldn't help but grin as he understood what had gone unsaid.

"What'd you get turned into?"

"I don't want to talk about it," Tony said through a mouthful of food.

"Was it bad?"

"It wasn't _bad_," Tony said after he'd swallowed the bite. "It was just… Look, it's a long story, and maybe it made me question everything I'd ever accepted about myself, but whatever. It's…"

He turned his attention to Olivia, and he frowned when he saw she'd gotten sauce on the front of her mostly-white dress. "Oh, baby girl," he said with a sigh and dipped a napkin in his water glass to try and dab some of the sauce off the pale front of the dress. "Yeah, that's my fault. I didn't have your bib snapped the right way. At least we already got the pictures."

He dabbed at the stain, frowning, and Olivia continued to stuff pieces of chicken and fruit into her mouth. Steve reached out and brushed his hand over the top of her head, the wispy blonde hair sticking up some in its wake.

"You're closer to her, aren't you? I mean, you're her real father, so it makes sense—"

"I spend more time with her, if that's what you mean. Just the way it works out. I don't go out avenging as much as I used to. I think it's more you get to be the 'fun' one and I have to be the 'responsible' one, if you can believe it."

"Fun? Wait, you say that like you think I can't be fun. I know how to have fun."

"Of course you do," Tony said, though it sounded like he was humoring him. "Look, we're not going to have the same exact kind of relationship with her. I mean, we share in the responsibilities. I feed her but you're the one that gives her a bath. Believe it or not, you have better luck diaper- changing than I do, but I have an easier time getting her dressed. We both put her to bed or get her up in the morning. But I'm just— We don't have a nanny because you don't trust anyone outside of the other Avengers or ourselves with her. We tried to hire one once, and you found so many flaws with the applications that I just gave up. I don't even think Mary fuckin' Poppins would have passed muster with you."

He nodded then said, "Mary Poppins?"

Tony waved him off. "Stupid movie. Don't even worry about it."

"Is she the only one? I mean, you said there's another couple on the team. Do they…?"

"No," Tony said with a sigh, "and I've just now come to the conclusion that I've told you way too much already. They don't, but a couple of the others do. None of them live at the Tower with us, though, which is probably a good thing — for the kids, I mean. Safer that way. Livvy's the only one that's there all the time."

"So, she really is spoiled? Not just by us, but by—"

"The whole team? Yeah, they're worse about it than we are but they insist that _we're _the ones that spoil her."

"And I spoil you? I mean, I take it that's what Wilson was saying before."

He rolled his eyes. "Yeah, he got that from Barton, and Barton is full of shit. Don't listen to him. Don't ever listen to him. We treat each other with dignity and respect, and you think I'm a goddamned genius, which is why you go along with what I say. Because I am a goddamned genius, and I'm right, and that's all there is to it, and you recognize that."

Steve didn't know why he did it — or maybe some deep-down part of him did — but underneath the table, he slid his right foot over to Tony and rubbed his foot against Tony's. Tony seemed perplexed at first, frowning and cocking his head, before knowing spread over his face, and he murmured, "Playing footsie with me, are we, Captain?"

Steve just folded his arms on the table and shrugged, but he smiled so that Tony hopefully knew that yes, he was, and yes, it was intentional.

Tony exhaled a breath and shook his head. "You have no idea what you're getting yourself into." "I think I can take it."

He would swear Tony's brain short-circuited once again at that, as he blinked, some weird twinge of a smile over his face, his entire body rigid like he was imagining something untoward related to what Steve had just said. He hadn't intended for it to be a come-on, but he let his thoughts delve into the darker parts of his mind, and he suddenly realized how that sounded.

"Oh," he said and felt a hot, painful blush spread from the apples of his cheeks to the tips of his ears. "I didn't— I mean I wasn't trying to—"

"God, I love you," Tony breathed out.

"What?" Steve asked with a nervous laugh.

"Steve, it's OK. You're a horny, dirty old man. I've come to accept it."

Steve flushed harder, if that was possible. They were _in public_, for crying out loud!

"It is adorable when you go all fifty shades of red like that, but you're not my Steve, and I don't want to make you any more uncomfortable than you already are, so why don't we drop it for now and pick it back up at a more convenient time — say, when we're both naked in bed together?"

Steve took a quick, nervous look around the establishment, and Tony frowned at him, almost in sympathy.

"Babe, no one's going to come after you for it. Honest. I mean, yeah, you get some fundies after you to repent your ungodly ways, but seriously, no one cares— No, I tell a lie. The gossip sites are after us for dirt constantly because anything about the Avengers is pure clickbait for them, and they're whores for that sort of shit. But other than that? I mean, honestly, no one's going to throw Steve Rogers in jail for fucking Tony Stark. The most they'd do is throw you under the bus."

Steve tried to will the flush to leave him, taking a deep breath and trying to steady his nerves, and for some reason, the only thing he could be bothered to say — almost like it was pure reflex or a muscle memory for him — was, "Don't say 'fucking.'"

But Tony shook his head and said, "No, babe, in this context, it's totally 'fucking.' They don't see it as 'making love,' like you do; they see it as down and dirty fucking, and they think I'm the one that corrupted you into doing it to begin with."

"That's terrible," he said, unable to stop the angry furrowing of his brow. "I'm not some wide-eyed farm boy that's too naïve to not get himself taken advantage of by some city slicker. I was like this long before I ever met you. It's just… It's not something you went around broadcasting. Not if you didn't want to end up beaten or jailed or…dead."

"I know," Tony said, and his tone said to Steve that he really did and wasn't just paying lip service. "Forget about it. It's Christmas. Let's just enjoy the day."

~*~

He should have felt guilty for it—

But it _was _an all-you-can-eat buffet.

He probably went up six or seven times, loading his plate up each time, and Tony did nothing but smile at him and laugh each time he said, "OK, one more plate."

It was gluttonous, and there was a part of him that saw it as abhorrently wasteful, but it tasted really good, and like the sign said, it was _all-you-can-eat_. He had to make sure he got his money's worth.

"Someday, I'm gonna bring you, Thor, and Hulk here and just let you have at it. See how long it takes before you three empty out the entire kitchen," Tony said as they stood at the register to pay. Tony didn't use cash. Instead, he had some sort of shiny, celluloid card that he swiped through some machine and then signed something. Steve frowned as he watched, and once he'd finished, Tony turned to him and said, "Bank cards. Wonderful things. You'll hate them, but you'll get used to them," as he took his arm and walked out of the building with him.

"What do you mean bank card?" he asked as they strolled down the street, Tony on his arm like, well, like the way he'd always imagined having his best dame— broad— girl— _woman_.

"Hmm? Oh, like writing out a check but more instantaneous and without having to stand there and write the whole thing out then waiting for it to go through the system and whatever. Debits your bank account—" he snapped his fingers, or at least he _tried _to through stylish leather gloves, "— like that. You're not in a hurry to go back to the house, are you? We could walk around town and look at the lights like the disgustingly domestic couple that we are."

Steve shrugged, Tony holding onto one arm, Olivia secure in his other, and led them down the street toward what Tony said was the center of town.

"Do I have any other plans?" he asked, half as a joke and half in earnest because he really didn't _know _if he did or not.

"Here? No. Where you think you're supposed to be? I don't know. You tell me."

"Supposed to be rooting out Hydra bases," he murmured, and Tony hummed lightly in response.

"Same shit, different day," he muttered.

They strolled down the sidewalk in relative silence, the slosh of wet snow beneath their feet and the scarce amount of traffic on the street beside them. They were closer to the square now, festively lit up for the season, and as Steve stopped at the corner and waited for the traffic to pass, he said, "Is Hydra really still around?"

Tony stayed quiet a moment, and when the traffic passed, he motioned for them to cross. Steve led them, slipping only the slightest in the middle of the intersection, and when they got to the other side of the street, Tony only said, "You'd be surprised."

The square was also a small park, trees and shrubberies and lampposts festooned in lights, and Tony motioned for Steve to lead them up a snow-trodden path toward some benches that had evidently been cleaned off sometime earlier that day. They walked through a canopy of white and red and green lights, and as they got to the bench, Tony said, "They're like rats."

He sat down, tugging Steve with him, and Steve sat beside him and settled Olivia onto his lap. "Rats?"

Tony sucked in a breath and settled himself onto the bench. "Sure," he said then grumbled and reached into his pocket. He pulled out that little black cellphone and looked at it, and his lips twitched in amusement at whatever he saw there.

"News certainly travels fast," he said. "I have a dozen messages from people that claim to admire and respect you telling me to tell you all sorts of bullshit stuff for shits and giggles." He 'hmphed' then stuffed his phone back into his pocket. "Trolls, all of them."

"They're making fun of me?" he asked, but he wasn't really offended. More curious.

Tony shrugged and pushed into Steve's side. Steve moved his arm to make room for Tony, and when Tony pushed even closer to him, Steve draped his arm along the back of the bench, itching to just put his arm around Tony. Tony pulled out his cellphone again, and he pressed a few buttons before he held it out in front of them, and Steve saw the three of them staring back at him in real-time, the lights of the park shining above them.

"How are you—?"

"Selfie," he said. "Smile babe!"

Tony grinned, and Steve attempted something of a smile that came out more like a grimace while Olivia just looked confused. Tony hit a button, and the image was captured on the cellphone. He held it up to show Steve, and though Steve cringed at the face he was making — not exactly his best but not really looking all that different from other photos he'd seen of himself — Tony laughed a little and said, "Yep, that's one of your selfies, all right."

"What in the world is a 'selfie'?"

"A picture you take of yourself with your phone."

A picture you take with your phone. As if he could have ever imagined something like that was even possible!

He just shook his head and turned to glance at some flashing, lighted display across the way, not even bothering to pay attention to Tony, who had wedged himself into Steve's side and was taking more pictures with his camera. Allegedly. He also didn't even think about the fact that the arm that he'd draped over the back of the bench had somehow migrated to Tony's shoulders, not until he felt the rough texture of wool under the palm of his hand as he unthinkingly rubbed at Tony's shoulder.

Tony wasn't even fazed by it.

"It's a little late to send out Christmas cards, I suppose, but whatever. Fuck those Russian spies, we're still the hottest couple on the team."

Steve turned his attention from the display and looked down to see Tony typing something onto the phone.

"What are you doing?"

"Hmm? Sending out another mass text showing them how ridiculously sexy we are."

Steve frowned. "That really wasn't my best photo."

"Yeah, and you've got a kid on your lap. I don't give a shit. We're still hot."

He pressed something, and after a few moments, the phone made a little noise. Tony glanced at it and rolled his eyes.

"'Cute' my ass. Fucking _People _Magazine," he grumbled.

"What?" Steve asked, genuinely curious.

"We're never going to live down that 'cutest couple' thing. I mean, the rest of the world's already forgotten about it, but not those assholes. Nope, we'll be the 'cutest couple' until the day we die."

He wasn't sure that it was Tony's best move to keep using such off-color language around the baby, but he didn't really feel comfortable chastising him for it.

"What's wrong with being 'cute'?" he asked instead, and Tony breathed out a sigh like 'cute' was the biggest insult in the history of mankind.

"Old people are 'cute,' Steve. We're not old."

"Are you sure about that?"

Tony gasped. "First my height, now my age. Say something about my weight, and you'll hit the sleeping-on-the-couch trifecta."

Steve just laughed, especially in that Tony didn't move one millimeter away from him. "Hey, I was including myself in that age thing. And I never said it was _bad _that you were wearing—"

"I swear to god you say 'heels,' you're sleeping on the couch for a month."

"_Lifts_," he said, though he knew the tone was slightly mocking, and Tony knew it, too, if the petulant 'humph' was anything to go by. "I think it's… I wasn't a big guy most of my life. I ran the risk of getting stepped on more than I did stepping on anyone. I understand what it's like. I… I don't know, I _like _having the advantage now. I like being the bigger one. It's… It's nice."

"Yeah? For the record, I'm not _short_. I'm _average_."

"Sure," Steve said with a laugh. "Sure, you are."

They left the park after that and made the short stroll back to the car, and they piled in for the drive back to the house. They were relatively silent on the drive home, but it was the comfortable sort of silence where words weren't necessary to break any sort of outstanding tension. Olivia babbled to herself in the back seat, but Steve could tell her babbles were tinged with exhaustion, and there was no argument this time about her kicking the back of Tony's seat.

Christmas music was still playing on the radio, but Steve had effectively learned how to tune it out by this point, instead focusing more on the road noise and the passing scenery. It still amazed him how prevalent Christmas lights were, how so many people seemed to go all out with them, and how _tiny _they were. He didn't think it was _too _much of a waste, but it did seem a bit frivolous to spend so much money on _Christmas lights _of all things.

Then again, he had seemingly fell in with a rich fella from the city. Of course he'd be able to afford to buy all those sorts of things and live in an area with other rich people that could afford those lights as well. He wasn't sure he'd say it felt like he was betraying his roots, but, well… He did wonder, once again, if he was some perverse form of a kept man.

They arrived back to a house tastefully illuminated in those tiny Christmas lights, and when Steve turned to ask who'd put them on, Tony said, "They're on a timer," as he pulled up the driveway and into the garage. "Come on at a certain time and go off at a certain time. Saves us from having to plug them in and unplug them later. I could just wire the outlets to work with switches, I suppose. Maybe next year."

He put the car in park and shut off the engine, the garage door closing of its own accord. Steve got out of the car — once again almost strangling himself with the belt — and Tony followed suit, reaching back in to snag the baby and the diaper bag. Tony walked around the back of the car and led Steve into the house, which was dark save for the tree lit up in the living room, and Tony set Olivia down and crouched down to her level to pull off her hat and her mittens and her coat, once again spinning her out of the coat to do so. She toddled into the living room after that, and Tony hit a switch to turn some table lamps on then went over to the coat rack and hung up her tiny duds.

"Wasn't so bad spending today with me, was it?" Tony asked as he hung up his own overcoat.

"No," Steve said as he handed his own over for Tony to hang up. "Not at all. It was…kind of nice, actually."

Tony just eyed him a moment and nodded, and he made to walk into the living room, but Steve caught him by the waist, and they stood together in the doorway a moment, their eyes dancing together, and Tony seemed to understand what Steve wanted — what he'd wanted from the moment he'd set eyes on Tony this morning — as much as Steve understood what Tony was looking for.

Tony glanced up at the sprig of mistletoe that hung above them. "It is tradition."

Steve nodded, and, palms sweating just a bit and heart racing a tad, he went to make the first move, but he'd never actually been the one to initiate a kiss before so he really didn't know what he was doing. Thankfully, Tony seemed aware of this, and he tipped his head and reached up to capture Steve's lips with his own. Steve let him, moving his arms around Tony's smaller frame, letting himself get caught up into it as he followed Tony's lead and hoped he wasn't embarrassing himself too much. If he was, Tony didn't say anything. Tony just moved so one hand cupped Steve's face while the other grasped his shoulder, their mouths met in slow, languid kisses that truly were the most intimate and wonderful thing Steve had ever done with anyone.

There was a cascading thump from the corner, and Steve jumped back, accidentally nipping Tony's lip as he did so. He went to apologize, but Tony, hand to his lip, just shook his head and said, "It's fine. Don't worry about it." He pulled his hand away and inspected it. "No blood. We're good."

He then turned his attention to the corner, where Olivia stood looking at the spilled pile of Christmas presents.

"Uh oh," was all she could be bothered to say.

"Yeah, 'uh oh' is right," Tony said and stepped around the couch to go over to the mess. "You know how long Papa spent arranging that while Daddy sat on his caboose and stuffed his mouth with cookies?"

"They were good," Steve said in his defense.

Tony hummed and said, "You're forgiven this— Baby, what are you—? You can't just take from the bottom of the pile like that."

He crouched down and pulled her small hands away from whatever box she was going for, and he moved everything that was piled on top of it before he was able to get it out, but by that time, Olivia had found the toy telephone again and had plopped down with it, the receiver in her mouth as she turned the dial with her fingers. Tony stared at her a moment then looked up to glare at Steve.

"What?" Steve asked with a laugh and sat down on the non-stained end of the couch. "She likes it!"

Tony just grumbled again about, "You and that goddamned phone," and began to clean up the mess again while Olivia got up and toddled over to Steve, dragging the toy telephone with her — not by the lead but by the receiver. She held her arms out to him, and he reached down and scooped her up then plopped her onto the cushion beside him.

"No, doll baby," he said and took the receiver from her mouth, "like this."

He grimaced at the slobber, but he wiped it off with his hand and then put it up to his ear and said, "Hello? Yes?" He held it out to her. "It's for you."

She just looked between him and the receiver then took it and tried to mimic what she'd just seen him do.

"You're teaching her outdated forms of communication," Tony said from the floor.

"But she's having fun. Isn't that the most important part?"

"I think you're having more fun than she is," he muttered and stacked a pile of clothing boxes atop each other. "How did she knock all this stuff down in the twenty seconds we weren't watching her?"

"Are you mad because she likes the phone more than the robot?"

Tony sniffed and said, "Yeah, well, we'll just see which one she's playing with in a week's time, and I don't think it's going to be the one modeled after an antique."

Steve merely tsked and shook his head as Olivia continued to babble into the phone. "You know," he said and brushed his hand over the top of her head again, "just because it's supposedly a little out of its time doesn't mean it's bad."

Tony glanced up at him, a twinkle in his eyes and a smirk on his lips. "Trying to tell me something, old man?"

"No," he said earnestly. "Just saying." He glanced down to his right to see Olivia holding the receiver up to him. "Oh, my turn, huh?" He took the receiver from her and pretended to put it up to his ear. "Yes? What's that? Tony's grumpy act is all for show? He's actually got a gooey marshmallow center? Well, stop the presses! Looks like we've got a new headline to print."

"Print's dead, babe. And it's not a— I do not have a—"

Steve just laughed as Tony scowled and tossed a balled-up piece of tissue paper at him that didn't quite make it past the coffee table.

"Fucking menace," he muttered.

"Hey!" Steve said and put his hands over Olivia's ears. "Don't use that kind of language around her— What?" he asked and cocked his head at Tony's rather bemused expression.

"Nothing," Tony said. "Just… You're a lot more like my Steve than I thought."

"Is that a good thing?" he asked because he honestly didn't know if it was or not, and Tony just shrugged.

"Well, I did marry the guy."

Steve nodded, his hands falling away from Olivia's head, and figured that would have to suffice for an answer. Somehow, he had a feeling that it meant a lot more than it seemed on the surface.

They changed back into their pajamas and settled in to watch another movie after that, two of them snuggled together on the couch with Olivia bundled between them. It was an older one — actually, to Steve, it was brand new — black-and-white and, as Tony slyly described it, 'communist propaganda.' Steve didn't see what was so communist about it. It was about a fella in a small town that felt constrained by the fact that he wasn't able to get out and see the world and do all the amazing things he'd dreamt of doing since he was a kid. Steve very much related to the desire to get out and do great things, and he very much related to the desire to help people that were unable to help themselves.

And then came the weird part with the angel and the chance to see what life had been like if the character had never been born, and Steve glanced over to Tony who, Olivia now sleeping against his chest, murmured, "We watch it every year. The one year the whole team watched it, and for a week, all you could hear around that tower was 'hee haw!'s and 'hot dog!'s."

Steve just nodded and continued watching the film, and by the end, he found himself itching to pull Tony and Olivia into his arms and never, ever let them go because he…understood. He _really _understood except he'd been given the exact opposite gift. He'd been shown a glimpse of what his future could be like, and instead of depression and misery it was…kind of nice. Really kind of nice. Everything he'd ever dreamt of but never really let himself imagine could actually happen. It was warm. Safe. Secure. _Home_.

But thankfully Tony had already done half the work for him, as he sat cuddled up against Steve's side, and Steve was easily able to curl his arm around him, casual-like, more that he was using Tony as an arm-rest than actually trying to cuddle with him. But Tony's head was on his shoulder, and all Steve had to do was turn his head just so to brush his cheek against the top of Tony's head.

"Getting sentimental on me, old man?" Tony asked, startling Steve from his comfortable thoughts.

"No?" he said, unable to keep the question out of his voice.

"Eh, it's a heartwarmer. You're allowed. I mean, it's also communist propaganda—"

"I still don't see it," Steve said with a gentle shake of his head, and Tony hummed and said, "Of course you wouldn't. You've got a red-streak in you yourself."

"What?"

"Nothing," he said and sat up, cradling Olivia against him, "I'm babbling. It's late. I'm tired. I'm going to go put this one to bed."

"Wait," Steve said and put a hand out to stop him. Something told him to do this or else miss his chance, and so with Olivia curled against Tony's chest, Steve brushed his hand over the top of her head one more time and whispered a quiet, "Good night, doll baby," and kissed her forehead. He lingered, brushing the tip of his nose against her forehead and inhaling that sweet baby scent then sat back and nodded that he was done. Tony tweaked a sad smile at him then got up and switched off the television, leaving Steve alone on the couch.

"Be right back," he said. "Don't go anywhere."

Steve made a motion as though to ask where he would even go, and Tony went into the foyer and up the stairs.

He sat there, staring at the soft light of the tree a moment, before he got up and went over to that radio-thing. He looked it over and tried to figure it out, and he pressed the button for what he figured was the tuner and was justly rewarded with music. It was more of that damned Christmas music, but still. Someone sounding an awful lot like Frank Sinatra was singing what sounded like it was supposed to be the end of 'Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.' Whereas 'White Christmas' had the wrong arrangement, this song seemed to have the wrong lyrics, though. Not that he was as familiar with the former song. It was newer and wasn't as popular as 'White Christmas' or 'I'll Be Home for Christmas,' but it was a pleasant-enough song regardless.

He looked over the room, the presents beneath the tree and the stockings on the mantle and the bows and garlands and lights and tried to catalogue it all. He didn't know where he'd be tomorrow morning, but just in case—

He jumped when he heard the sound of cannons firing. He fell to the floor, covering his neck, his heart pounding, and glanced around to try to identify where the guns were coming from.

The radio, he realized when he'd finally been able to swallow his heart back down to his chest. They were on the radio. He sat up just the slightest, hand still on the back of his neck, and stared in awed confusion at the radio. Awed confusion turned to horror when the guns gave way to a choir of voices singing a verse of 'O Tannenbaum.' He gasped out several breaths as he realized this was it. This was the signal. This was the sign. They'd got him. It had taken them the whole day, but they'd got him right where they wanted him. It had been a trick. The whole thing, the whole crazy thing — Tony, Olivia, the Avengers — had been nothing but a slow-burning trick, and he'd fallen for it, taken the bait hook, line, and sinker.

He'd just squeezed his eyes shut, tears threatening to fall through, when the drums started. A march beat on snares. What sounded like an organ. English voices — or voices speaking English, anyway. His eyes still closed, he frowned and raised an eyebrow as he listened.

It was a song. A song about...the Red Baron? A Christmas song about the Red Baron and someone named 'Snoopy'?

He opened his eyes and stared at the radio, dropping his hand away from his neck. He listened a few moments then started laughing, full-throated, belly-clutching laughter. He fell back against the coffee table laughing, and he wiped away the old tears of fear that had fallen and got up. A children's song. He'd almost had a heart attack over a children's song!

He stared at the radio another moment and listened to the stupid thing before he shook his head and went over to the tree. He found the ornaments Tony had talked about earlier — the ones that were made up to look like what he presumed were the Avengers. There was a green one that matched the plush toy Olivia had gotten; another one that had sort of a winged helmet; another one with red hair in a black suit; another one with a quiver on his back; one with auburn hair and dressed in red; another one that was…kind of green and yellow; one that had a black mask and what almost looked like it was supposed to be a metal arm; another one with red wings; and a gray one that kind of looked like that Iron Man he'd seen.

But separated from those, sort of on their own little branch, were the two that were supposed to look like Captain America and Iron Man, facing each other, almost looking like they were supposed to be kissing. He didn't know who had done the decorating, but he had to believe they'd been put this way on purpose, and it was kind of cute, if he was being honest with himself. He wasn't sure if hanging them right above the 'Baby's First Christmas' ornament was intentional or not, but even if it wasn't, he had to believe there was a reason it had been done that way, why all of this was...

He hesitated to say he was in love with Tony. He didn't know him all that well. Hell, he didn't even know his last name. But then, he'd never actually _been _in love before, so he really had no frame of reference for it. He thought about his smile, his manner, the way he walked and the way he talked and the way he looked at Steve like he was the only person in the room. He thought about the easy way they could talk to each other and the easy way they seemed to get each other and understand each other without having to say a word. He supposed, on Tony's part, it was because they had been married for some time, but as Tony had pointed out, he wasn't _his _Steve. Not yet. He still had a ways to go before he would be _his _Steve, but just the fact that even now, he could still get Steve with nary a question asked—

That had to mean something, right? Was it love? Was it infatuation? Was it comfort? Was it settling for what they could get? He didn't know. What he did know was that he was more in love with Tony than he'd ever been with anyone in his life, and he didn't want to let him go. Not then; not ever.

"Here," Tony said, startling him, and Steve turned to see Tony holding two champagne flutes filled with a dark-colored beverage. But instead of taking the one that was proffered to him, Steve swallowed and took the bold initiative to do something he had, up to that point, not been able to do.

He reached out and cupped Tony's face in his hands and, hoping he was doing this the right way, he bent his head and captured Tony's lips with his own. He tried to remember the way Tony had done it — the force, the passion, the tongue and the teeth and saliva — and he held Tony's face a little firmer and kissed him a little harder, and when all was said and done and he pulled back to see if he'd done OK, Tony just opened his eyes and blinked up at him and said, "You're a terrifyingly fast learner."

Steve moved his hand some to brush his thumb against Tony's bottom lip and Tony, the fast- moving bastard, took the pad of Steve's thumb in between his lips and kissed it, suckling at it just the slightest before he let it go. It sent a shot of something straight down to Steve's groin, and Tony's husky response to that didn't do much to help matters.

"If you're not careful, Captain, you're going to find yourself thoroughly debauched before you make your way back to the front."

He almost wanted to tell Tony to put his money where his mouth was — he was half-hard again already — but Tony just pulled back and held up the flute glass again. "Here," he said.

"What's this?" he asked as he took the glass.

"Tradition," Tony said and clinked their glasses together. "Merry Christmas."

"Merry Christmas," Steve murmured and took a sip. It was sweet. Bubbly. Like a carbonated, sweetened wine. "What is this?" he asked and pulled the glass away from his lips to inspect the contents.

"Sparkling grape juice."

Steve shot him a look, eyebrow raised and all, and Tony shrugged. If Steve didn't know better, he'd say he looked a little sheepish.

"It's as hardcore as we get nowadays. Alcohol doesn't do anything for you — not even Thor's special Asgardian mead — and I…sort of had a problem with it in my not-entirely-younger days."

"You an alky?"

"If that's old-man for 'alcoholic,' I was…er… I mean _maybe _I could have been sort of classed as one on some technical level, sure. I've kinda been dry a while now, and I'm not really looking to fuck that up. My old man—" He clamped his mouth shut and shook his head then said, "My kid deserves a hell of a lot better than I ever got."

"I'm sorry," Steve said as Tony took another sip of his juice. "I used to envy kids that still had their dads. Never thought that having one could be worse than not having one."

Tony shrugged and moved over to the couch to sit down. "Not everyone should be a parent," he said and motioned for Steve to sit down beside him. He followed, flute glass still in his hand. "But I guess not everyone knows that ahead of time. I'm sure he did, but I don't think he really gave a shit."

He nestled back into that crook of the couch between the back and the arm and motioned for Steve to cuddle up against him. Steve raised an eyebrow and said, "You sure?"

"Wouldn't ask you to if I wasn't."

Steve shrugged then took another sip and snuggled up against Tony, pulling the blanket with him.

They settled in, sipping their juice, Tony running light and soothing fingers through Steve's hair, and Steve closed his eyes and finally allowed himself to accept that he didn't just want to stay there a little while longer—

He wanted to stay there, with Tony and Olivia, forever.

It wasn't that he hated that other life, and it wasn't that he was running away from it. He didn't run away from fights. If he started running, he'd never stop. It was just that this life was so much…_better_. It was happier, it was warmer, and it was safer. It was, well, corny as it sounded, it was _love_.

Steve had done his best to keep that deep, dark part of himself hidden from sight from the moment that he realized that part of him existed. It was a moral failing, a character flaw, one so damaging that even the serum quite obviously couldn't fix it. The serum had fixed everything else about him, but it hadn't fixed _this_, and that was frightening because what could be so bad — so permanently scarring — that even the serum couldn't touch it? So, he'd hidden it. Forced himself to tamp it down and never let it see the light of day. Hell, he'd even convinced Bucky that he was all better now, much to Bucky's relief. _It's easier for you this way, pal_, Bucky had said. _You don't deserve to have to live your life in the shadows. And that Carter? Jesus, Steve, talk about hitting a home run your first time at bat!_

He liked Peggy. He could even see himself falling for her. He could see himself marrying her and maybe even having a family with her. She was beautiful, she was smart, and she was filled to the brim with moxie. She was everything he told himself he'd ever wanted in a dame— broad — _woman_. He wanted so much to love her, for it to be easy for him to love her. He wanted to feel _normal_. He'd thought after the serum he might finally feel _normal _for the first time in his life. He'd gotten taller, he'd gotten healthier, and hell, maybe he'd even gotten a little smarter. But what he hadn't become, what he so desperately wanted to become, was _normal_. He still stole more glances at men than women — glances he immediately erased from memory — and he still dreamt more about lithe, lean, muscular bodies than soft, supple, curvy ones. If going purely by looks alone, he was more inclined to give Howard Stark a generous look-over than Peggy, though while he liked and trusted Stark, he operated on such a completely different wavelength than the rest of the world that Steve didn't think he'd ever have a chance of getting through to him about anything more personal than the paint scheme for his shield.

Now that he thought about it, Tony reminded him a lot of Stark — both in looks and in personality. Strange that he'd never actually given any thought to Stark in that way given that he'd evidently married someone that was so similar to him.

But Tony was different. Both Stark and Tony had that way of talking about things so far beyond Steve's understanding it was embarrassing, but whereas Stark did all that he could to hide his frustration from Steve — and sometimes not even — and had a certain way of being just the slightest bit condescending toward him, Tony delighted in having to explain things in a way that Steve could understand, his eyes lighting up and warmth and humor washing over his face.

Whereas Stark would barely have been able to hide his disdain, Tony glowed while explaining things to Steve, and though Tony talked sort of in the way that Stark did, it was without the actual haughtiness. He could tell Tony knew he was often the smartest man in any room, but whereas Stark's ego was offensive, Tony's was defensive, and Steve knew something had happened long ago in Tony's life to make him so defensive of who he was and what he could contribute to the world. It made him that much more protective of the madman that rambled on about events and concepts that Steve could barely follow, and even when Tony was tooting his own horn, there was a sad note of self-deprecation to his words that told him for all his bluster, Tony was much more fragile than he let on.

He wanted nothing more than to cradle that beautiful idiot in his arms and forever shield him from all the ills of the world because, well…

Because maybe he _was _in love with Tony.

It was not difficult to see how he had fallen in love with this man. What he felt for Peggy — and he'd known her for a good year-and-a-half now — felt forced in comparison. Oh, he did like Peggy, and he knew, given the time, he could love her, but he didn't even have to try with Tony. He felt more at peace, more at home with himself with Tony than he'd ever felt with anyone. He didn't have to pretend. He had woken up in a world where he didn't have to hide who he was — quite obviously _didn't _hide who he was. He had fallen in love with a man, had _married _that man, had somehow had a daughter with that man. They had a country house upstate, a home-away- from-home from their lives as _superheroes _in New York, leaders of a group that called themselves 'the Avengers.'

He should have felt guilty. He should have felt so, so guilty. He should have been hating himself for this, should have been lighting candles or saying prayers or doing penance for those that were lost and those that would never come back. There had been a war on when he'd gone to sleep, one he'd been itching to join from the start and had eventually found himself neck-deep in. He'd killed men, and he'd watched his best friend fall to his death.

But he didn't feel guilty. He felt at peace. Goddamn him, he was at peace, and he didn't want to go back — not then, not ever.

Some song that began 'Chestnuts roasting on an open fire…' played quietly in the background, and the voice that sang it was like pure liquid gold, so rich and melodious Steve thought he could listen to it forever. He nestled closer to Tony, reveling in the warmth and security he provided.

"I like this song," he murmured and took another sip of his juice. Tony's fingers didn't even hesitate in their rhythm.

"Yeah, you do."

"I feel bad."

Damn it, now why had he gone and said that?

"What for?"

He shrugged and considered what was in his glass. "This."

"'This' what? Gotta be a bit clearer on that, babe."

"I'm happy."

Tony was silent a moment, and he sipped his juice then said, "And that's a bad thing?"

"I don't deserve—"

"Stop," Tony said and stilled running his fingers to gently slap Steve on the side of the head. "Don't even go there. Don't ever say you don't deserve this. You deserve it. Trust me."

He just shook his head some and continued to eye the contents of his glass. "You don't understand. I don't deserve this. There are men out there laying down their lives—"

"Like you — like _us_. I know considering where you just were last night you don't feel deserving of this, but the Steve _I _know — _my _Steve — deserves this more than anyone I know. And that he and you are, technically, the same person…"

"I shouldn't be so… I don't have any right to be happy. Not after… Not after what I've done. And why do I deserve this more than anyone else? More than any of the others?"

"Who says they don't get it? And why don't you have any right to be happy? Have you really done anything _that _bad? I know what you've done; I know what you're capable of—"

"I don't want to go back."

Tony was silent a moment before he said, "Ah."

"I know I have to. I know, if this is real then it's only a glimpse, but I don't want… I don't want to leave."

Tony finished his juice and reached over to set the glass on the coffee table, jostling Steve only the slightest bit to do so. He plucked the glass from Steve's hand and set it beside his empty one then snuggled down more into the couch and put tight arms around him, his fingers working their way back into Steve's hair.

"You know, this is nice for a change," he murmured and bowed his head some to kiss the top of Steve's head. "Usually you're the one holding me. I like being the holder for a change."

"My frame's larger than yours. It makes sense."

Tony reached down and pulled the blanket up some to more fully cover them. "Yeah, but you're so fucking determined to take the world on your shoulders to keep everyone else safe and protected. You've gotta let me help you shoulder the burden more often. Contrary to all the whining I do, I don't actually mind it. There's no one else I'd rather do it for."

"I can't believe I have to wait seventy years to get back to this."

"It'll go by in a flash. Trust me."

"You keep saying that," he said, but there was a smile on his lips.

"What?"

"That I should trust you."

Tony took a sharp inhale of breath, and he said, "You have to. We have to trust each other. We've seen what happens when we don't. That can't happen— I will do everything in my power to make sure that doesn't happen here, and I know you — or _my _you — feels the same way."

Steve just snorted a laugh. "You make it sound like the entire universe revolves around us."

"Eh, it kind of does. That's not me being egotistical. It… We've seen things. It always comes down to the two of us."

"I wonder why that is."

Tony blew out a breath. "If we ignore the whole 'soul mate' theory, easiest way to explain it is that we're just two very powerful life forces, and the fate of the entire galaxy rests upon us getting and keeping our act together. Again, it sounds egotistical, but it's kind of true."

"Good Lord," he said with a laugh, "Howard would never believe it. Me, being that important to the universe."

He felt Tony's arms stiffen, and he pulled back some and went to check to see what was wrong when Tony mumbled out, "There's a lot of things Howard would never believe."

He frowned at Tony's tone of voice and sat up to look at him. It was as though he was seeing Tony fully for the first time — the hair, the eyes, the neatly-groomed facial hair, the general swagger, and the brainpower so far above anything Steve could or would ever understand.

There was a reason Tony reminded him so much of Howard.

"You… You're related to him, aren't you?" Steve could have smacked himself for the waver in his voice.

Tony's lips thinned. "Yeah."

Steve swallowed and did a quick calculation in his head. "Grandson?"

"Son."

Steve raised his eyebrows.

"Sort of a late-in-life kid. Mistake at the bottom of a whiskey bottle. One of those things. Maybe both."

He sat back, blinking, unable to fully process what he'd just been told. Tony… This man was Howard's _son? _He'd married Howard Stark's _son? _No, this had to have been a dream or a hallucination or a—a— _anything _but actual, legitimate truth.

"Sorry for the disappointment."

Steve turned sharp eyes on him.

"Not what you were expecting, I know."

"I just, I don't…" The words wouldn't spill out of his mouth no matter how hard he tried. "_How?_"

"Long story," Tony said with a blasé shrug.

"_Why?_"

"Why is it a long story or why you with me?"

Steve just blinked and rubbed the bridge of his nose but didn't say anything.

"I can't tell you why it's a long story, but you with me is, I like to think, because we fell in love. As corny as that sounds. 'course, with the way you're acting, now I'm left wondering if you and Howard didn't have something going on together, and boy, does that open up all sorts of weird Greek tragedy shit. I mean, he did spend pretty much the entirety of the rest of his life looking for you…"

Tony continued rambling, but Steve had pulled himself together long enough to focus on what Tony had said about he and Howard having 'something going on together.' He didn't want to know what Tony had meant about Howard spending the rest of his life looking for him, though if this was true — if Steve had gone back with the knowledge that he'd _married _Howard's _son _— well, it stood to reason that he wouldn't want to face the man any longer than he absolutely had to. And it wasn't as though he could explain _why _he didn't want to face Howard any more than he had to. _Hey, Howard, sorry. Listen, I saw the future, and turns out, I married your son. Sounds crazy, I know, but turns out you're going to have a son quite a few years down the road, and I'm barely going to age a day in that time, and someday, he and I are going to get married and have a daughter and buy a house somewhere upstate. Turns out Erskine's formula doesn't fix perversion, and yeah, guess your son is going to go that way, too_. Yeah, that would go over real well.

But Steve and Howard?

"No," he said with more disgust than he'd meant. He only now realized Tony was still rambling.

"No?" Tony asked, cut off mid-rant. "'No' what?"

Steve shook his head a bit but wouldn't meet Tony's eyes. "Me and Howard. No. Absolutely not. It never even occurred to me." He looked up to meet Tony's eyes, and he watched as Tony searched all over his face before he seemed to find what he was looking for.

"Yeah," he said, the makings of a smile on his face. "I know. Maybe I just wanted to make sure. I don't know. But you… I trust you."

He thought about asking if Howard was dead — Tony did say '_the rest of his life_,' and Steve took that to mean that Howard was indeed dead — but he didn't think 'Howard' was a subject he wanted to stay on any longer than he had to, and so he reached out and took hold of Tony's left hand and grasped hold of Tony's ring between his thumb and forefinger. "So, then, your last name is 'Stark.'"

"Yeah. Well, sort of."

Steve raised a questioning eyebrow. "Sort of? What's that—? I mean, how does it work when two, uh, _men_, uh…?"

Tony laughed and continued to let Steve play with his hand. "However you want, babe. Could have taken mine. Could have taken yours. Could have made up our own. We decided to hyphenate. Legally, we're both 'Stark-Rogers.' And it's _not _because, as Barton likes to insist, I'm spoiled. It's because it sounds better than 'Rogers-Stark.' I'm sorry, babe, but it just does. I know the other way is alphabetical, but it's that 'S' at the end of your name and the beginning of mine. It fucks it up for you. Stark-Rogers just sounds better, and even you agreed with me. You didn't just _humor me _like asshole Barton said."

"You said that before — that this 'Barton' says I spoil you. Why? I mean why does he say it?"

Tony grumbled and said, "You'd have to ask the birdbrain. He thinks you spoil me with affection or attention or validation or something. I don't know. He's got everyone else convinced that I'm spoiled, too. I remember he said one time, 'If I let the Cap fuck me, think he'd let me get away with whatever I wanted, too?' Obviously, you weren't there at the time."

Steve really didn't know what to say to that, so he just said, "And what about…?" and nodded in the direction of the nursery upstairs. "I mean her name...?"

"Stark-Rogers as well, and very deserving of both."

He didn't quite know what Tony meant by that, but he knew even if he asked, Tony would be cagey about it, so he just gave Tony's hand a tight squeeze and said, "God, this is all so—"

"Overwhelming?"

"Confusing. I—" He lowered his gaze but couldn't stop the flush slowly spreading over his cheeks. "I guess it still boggles my mind that this— that _we _could—"

Tony grinned at him and said, "All right, spoiler because I don't think this one's too bad: You know what the public's reaction was when they found out Captain America was schtupping Iron Man? Well, some of them condemned us to hell, but those are the reactionary assholes that are dying out by the thousands. No, you know what a good chunk of them said? That Captain America could _do better _than Iron Man. That I reached higher than I had any right to and you settled far below what you had any right to. _That _is where public opinion is now on that sort of thing."

He finally met Tony's eyes. "I don't think that's very fair."

"I believe your exact words were: 'They don't like it? Fuck 'em.' Swear to god, you almost gave Barton a stroke when you said that. Funniest fucking thing I ever saw."

He frowned. "Why? I actually think it's a pretty good sentiment."

Tony grinned. "The very idea of Captain America saying the word 'fuck.'"

Steve snorted a laugh. "What, do you think I go around chastising people about their language?"

Tony burst out laughing like he'd just heard the funniest thing in the world, and Steve waited for him to calm down before he added, "I might not say it _a lot_, but I know my way around four-letter words."

Tony's laughs finally died down to an amused chuckle, and his eyes lit up in lust and delight. "Yeah, you do. Fuck, the things I know about Captain America that no one else would believe."

The fact that anyone could look at Steve the way Tony looked at him — like he was this modern marvel, like the sun rose and fell on him, like he'd hung the moon — amazed Steve to no end. No one had ever looked at him that way. Even Peggy hadn't.

To be fair, he wasn't sure he'd looked at Peggy that way, either.

"I'm not sure I deserve you," Steve said, but he didn't pull his hands away from Tony's.

"Likewise."

They settled back into a silent calm after that, Steve reclined against Tony, his head nestled against Tony's chest, Tony's fingers raking gently through his hair. He whispered a prayer to not let him go back, to let him wake up tomorrow here in Tony's warm, safe arms, and as sleep began to overtake him, he heard Tony murmur, "So, FYI, kinda thinking about putting a workshop in the basement, and this _totally _counts as me telling you, and I'm going to take your lack of 'Tony, no' as your approval of this project."

He tried to murmur, "Tony, no," in response, but sleep had just about won over, and he finally drifted off into dreamland, a soft, "See you in seventy, babe," bidding him his bon voyage.

~*~

~*Back to the Alps, December 1944*~

He awoke to cold and an eerie wind and hard, solid earth beneath him. He opened his eyes, slowly, to be greeted by a campsite and a crick in his neck from where he'd slept on his helmet, and Dugan was sitting there with a pan of cold water as he trimmed his beard and offered Steve a, "Merry Christmas, Cap. Slept well, I take it?"

A dream, he realized with no small amount of crushing disappointment. It had all been a dream. A very vivid, very warm, very lovely dream. Of course it was a dream. To believe that Hydra would still exist in 2015! (And wasn't that an odd year to dream about?) Or that he would marry _Howard Stark's son_, of all people! He could completely understand why he'd dreamt of Hydra, but where Howard Stark's _son _had come from, he'd never know.

Then again, hadn't he accepted this 'Tony' was his deepest, darkest fantasy come to life? He closed his eyes and swallowed at the memory of 'Tony' sitting beside him in bed and stretching out the last vestiges of sleep from that gorgeous lithe, tawny body. _That's _why he dreamt about him. The only question was why would his subconscious cast this fantasy as Howard Stark's _son?_

"Yeah," he said but didn't elaborate. "Merry Christmas," he added and, one last image of 'Tony's' dark eyes and feathery black lashes flashing in his mind's eye, pushed every speck of memory from that dream from his mind. No sense dwelling over a fiction that would never happen, no matter how strangely painful it was to let go of.

Though he'd be lying if he didn't admit there was a weird, awkward air between him and Howard the next time he saw him, and some months later, after he'd put the plane into a nosedive and promised Peggy — sweet, wonderful Peggy, who he could now say had soft lips and smelled like heaven — a date that they both knew would never come, when the water was rushing in and sweeping him up in its power and majesty, the last thing he heard, his last conscious thought, was a distant but comforting voice telling him, _See you in seventy, babe._

~*Fin*~


End file.
